Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Review

The latest installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, On Stranger Tides, has Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow hunting down the Fountain of Youth. Will this newest story feel young and fresh or is the Pirates franchise just getting old?

On Stranger Tides only introduces a few new characters that are essential to the story and overall the casting was done very well. Ian McShane as Blackbeard was fantastic and definitely gave you a chill when he was on screen. However, I personally felt that the performance by Penelope Cruz as Angelica Melon was dry and stiff. Her most convincing moment was the 3 seconds that she was yelling at Johnny Depp in Spanish. She fully delivers the role but I feel that another in her place may have added some depth to the character. Lastly, Stephen Graham as Scrum was a good casting choice as he really nailed the knowledgeable simpleton aspects of the character. Rounding out the main cast was Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa, Kevin McNally as Gibbs, and of course Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. I was actually really glad to see that they had brought back the character of Gibbs because I always found him to be a great, loyal character in the franchise.


Taking a look at the characters, we have Jack Sparrow and his traditional opening ‘escape sequence’ which was truly over the top and in my opinion too elaborate of a way for Jack to claim a pastry that had gotten stuck on a chandelier. It has also come to my attention that Jack has officially become the “ninja” of the pirate world; taking out whole garrisons of trained soldiers with ease while using his surroundings. That's right - I called a pirate a ninja! (Was going to go with an actor but thought ninja would be funnier given their 'rivalry'.)

Blackbeard was an interesting character in this movie. I loved that they had him tie canon fuses into his goatee like in real life. Very cool and very creepy. The character itself commanded your attention but had a few faults that made him seem too mystical for my tastes. I’m willing to accept that the Blackbeard of this movie was using voodoo to control his men but the fact that he had mystical abilities and a magical sword that let him control the rigging of the ship and attack his men with them like a giant octopus was just too outside of the box for me. This was just really bizarre. Blackbeard was a complete badass in real life and didn’t need this extra little feature. His flame shooting ship was a bit odd as well.

The mermaids were a really cool addition for this movie and I really liked the ‘evil mermaid’ take that this movie used. You don't often get to see this side of mermaids so that was great. Castings for the mermaids were great as they were all very attractive. I didn’t understand however the choice to give the mermaids fangs and the ability to shoot ‘Spider-Man’ esque webbing to grab at their prey. Looking past this, the mermaid attack scene was definitely fun to watch and one of the great points in the movie.

I really apprectiated Jack stopping a big fight and shouting out ‘Why do we all need to fight to the death simply because he (Barbossa) wants to kill him (Blackbeard)? Why don’t we all just sit back and watch them fight each other?’ This moment made me laugh quite hard and is so true for so many great movie scenes. The movie had many great lines like this that are definitely quotable later on. The ‘after credits scene’ felt completely unnecessary and was only about 10 seconds. It just seemed like a waste to sit there for something that may not have anything to do with the story besides give some people a small chuckle. Overall, the movie has very good flow and at no point did it feel to be dragging out unnecessarily. Although there is plenty going on throughout this movie, it definitely has a lighter feel to it than the previous three which made the movie experience much more enjoyable.

Rating – 8 out of 10