Grace

Finally watched "On Stranger Tides" last night. And it was... disappointing. :S I mean, it was okay, but it's not as funny as the first film, nor as engaging and emotional as the second and third. Plus there's so little borrowed from the novel of the same name, I quite wonder why they bothered filching the title! Overall it was just humdrum.

I can't quite work out where it goes wrong. With all the set pieces and vast array of characters, it should be a fun film. But it's just not interesting and the humour feels forced. Blackbeard doesn't have the presence a pirate of that calibre should, though he's played well enough by McShane, and though there is chemistry between Cruz and Depp it's still not something of particular interest. Even the fights were generally tedious.

Geoffrey does his best as Barbossa and brings a bit of darkness and gravitas to his character who's now not only come back from the dead but, since the last film, has had to cut of his own leg. Gutsy captain. And we all knew he wasn't *really* a king's man... ;) His story ended quite well. But the whole Blackbeard "prophecy", about the man with one leg, was a big obvious and not very mystical - surely we could have come up with a more cryptic, spooky prophecy than that? And the "subplot", if I dare to call it such, between Sirena and Philip? *yawn* Seriously, I'd rather have had Elizabeth and Will there... What was the point?

The Spaniards were a bit superfluous as well - if they're gonna be so instrumental in destroying the fountain, at least give them some foundation as characters rather than making them proverbial bookends, propping up each end of the movie. *le sigh*

Like I said, it was okay. I will be able to watch it again without cringing and it does have some fun moments, pretty visuals, and a couple of cute cameos (Judi Dench! Didn't see that one coming!), but it's just not what I was hoping for. The novel had a far more interesting and downright freaky plot which I'm surprised they didn't take advantage of. And too much seemed to be left unexplained - like WTF was up with the "Queen Anne's Revenge"? Are we expected to take it as a given that it's a strange, haunted-type ship? And why the ships in bottles? How and why does that magic work? Why is Blackbeard a voodoo master? How did he "zombify" his crew? Ponce de Leon - aren't we gonna hear more about him? I feel like we've missed out a whole film in between AWE and OST which might have laid down some rails for the plot to run on in this fourth instalment. (Either that or I was so disengaged as to not listen to the explanations... Mind wandered off to think of other things far too often.)

I don't mean to be a misery guts, but I really am surprised at how little this film engaged me. Definitely my fourth favourite of the four films. It didn't have that PotC aura about it at all. :( I presume there's going to be a fifth so pull your socks up, Disney, or leave this ship to rest. The only comfort is knowing that Barbossa's still around for the next one and back in outwardly-pirate-mode.

I hate being left a bit dissatisfied. I'm glad I chose to see "X-Men: First Class" instead of this at the cinema. "X-Men" is, alas, much better.