A Brief Treatise on the Pitfalls of Pirates

Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides is a movie that had more impostors than At World’s End had betrayal. Everyone wants to be Jack Sparrow. No one wants to be Will or Elizabeth, including Will and Elizabeth. This simple fact was the kick in the right direction that places On Stranger Tides alongside the stronger of the Pirates franchise films.

We realize that we’re closing in on two months since the movie came out but trust us, this review was lovingly crafted and is well worth the read. Also our local cineplex still has On Stranger Tides showing so quit your complaining. Join Brian and James on their critical review of Pirates of The Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides. We may be a little off in our timing but the time taken is reflected in quality. Y’all know this to be true. Enjoy

James: On Stranger Tides starts us on familiar tides. The city of London. With a hanging of pirates. Or so we can all hope for.

Brian: As usual, Pirates does a lovely job with its crowds and bloodthirsty mobs. Even though the London streets teem with “respectable” citizens and finely-dressed children, the similarities between their behavior and that of a ship full of scallywags is humorously similar.

I’d like to get started right away by saying that I’m very interested in the Blackbeard character. Though the series constructs its pirates using bits and pieces from history (Barbossa is loosely based on Henry Morgan, Jack takes some elements from Calico Jack Rackham, and so on), this is the first time it directly lifted a (mortal) pirate personality from history (not without embellishment, of course).

J: In my mind there are two main questions about Blackbeard. There is the initial question of whether or not he was a good addition to the Pirates cast of characters. There is also the secondary question of whether or not he was wasted by being killed off after only one film.

B: I would answer yes to both of those questions. If you are going to have a franchise titled “Pirates of the Caribbean,” you’re tacitly promising your viewers (is this the correct term for movie-goers?) that someday, they will have a beard-burning, fire-ship driving, treasure-fleet-plundering pirate of the truly mythical proportions to which Blackbeard has risen. Before Johnny Depp started trying on dreadlocks and even before a little underground boat ride was built in Orlando, Blackbeard was a legend. But it is my opinion that On Stranger Tides failed to treat him thus.

I agree. To the second question though, I disagree slightly. I feel like Blackbeard was wasted as a character not because he was killed off so quickly, but because he was developed as a highly magical character. In a franchise so loose from reality in terms of magic and the like, I saw a character like Blackbeard, who was so mythological even in the real world, I thought that making him actually magic rather cheated him a little. I really would have liked to see a Blackbeard who was a straight pirate, fighting for his position of top pirate in a world filled with shamans, undead, and deathly octopus men.

Exactly. Blackbeard was impressive because of his behavior when he first appeared- all he has to do is walk through a doorway to cow his crew, no magic involved whatsoever (“I find myself... in a bewilderment.”). The voodoo I have no real problem with (insofar as pirates have a religion, it is generally identified as Voodooism or Vodoun ), but the character is less meaningful for the pervasive magic in which Disney wrapped him. He’s at least as magical as Tia Dalma, who, you might recall, turned into crabs and became the weather in At World’s End, after resurrecting a twice-dead Barbossa in Dead Man’s Chest and chaperoning an adventure to the afterlife.

I think looking back on the series that perhaps we can hope that this is not the last we will see of Blackbeard. Hopefully he’ll be back, without his magic, and pirating again.

Perhaps. There’s plenty of precedent in the franchise for temporary death. What there is very little, if any, precedent for is actual piracy. Aside from Barbossa’s sack of Port Royale in Curse of Black Pearl, Disney fastidiously avoids any actual piratical acts (probably because they’re all pretty filthy, immoral, violent, graphic, and completely inappropriate for their audience and canon).

Which only stressed more why I was looking forward to a Blackbeard, who might have been out doing some real pirating, while all of the others were out and about not doing the nitty gritty pirating.

Maybe the monkey will reinvigorate that aspect of the world.

We can’t possibly fully explore the addition to the series that Blackbeard represents without addressing the other new addition: his daughter.

Don’t you mean his “daughter?” I adored Angelica the first time I saw the film, and not just because she’s Penelope Cruz. The character hearkens back to the Jack Sparrow of Curse of the Black Pearl, when no one knew whose side he was on, whether he was a “good guy,” and whether anything he said was true or false. For me, On Stranger Tides didn’t point us to one particular “truth” for Angelica, except that she is a master con artist. Even when she attempts to sacrifice her life for Blackbeard, she could easily have anticipated Jack’s maneuver with the chalices, or even, as Jack suspects midway through the film, “fallen for her own con.”

I liked the character as well. While Elizabeth, the former token female character, certainly made a play to become a powerful, non-objectified, female character she really fell short since she was so motivated by her love interests with almost all of the main characters. Angelica on the other hand is motivated by a lot of things, the least of which is her feelings for Jack. Her feelings do tend to sway more to hatred for him then love never-the-less.

If Blackbeard’s future with the franchise is dubious at best, I think it’s safe to say that we haven’t seen the last of Angelica.

This is especially true due to her Spanish heritage. On the open seas where the pirates rule something like nationality isn’t too much of an issue. But now that we’ve seen the Spanish solidly enter the game alongside the English we will have to start thinking about nationality of the characters. She adds a character, on the pirate side of the playing field, who is not English like all of the others. I don’t think the couple Asian pirates that we’ve seen really count, since I’ve tried to forget as much of the third movie that I can.

And the multicultural crew of Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge was so blatantly globally representative, it hardly counts.

So much of the tension between nations that allowed piracy to exist so extensively in the historical Caribbean was a result of the national hatred. It is nice to see the series finally getting into that.

Before this turns into a brilliant, reflective, but ultimately off-topic rumination on the Golden Age of Piracy, allow me to divert us to a character who can be loosely discussed in the same paragraph, or at least on the same page, as Angelica: the priest whose name everyone always forgets (Philip). If Penelope Cruz replaces Kiera Knightley as our token power-chick, then Sam Claflin replaces Orlando Bloom as our token moral compass.

I was unclear, was he really a priest, or simply a highly religious character? Furthermore was he Catholic or Church of England?

The characters, especially Blackbeard, often referred to him as ‘priest’ or ‘cleric,’ and I think at one point (during the exposition of his capture) it’s indicated that he’s a missionary. As for his denomination, I believe it’s Church of England, but I suppose in a world of Jesus and Not-Jesus, it’s a technicality.

I think the Spanish Inquisition might disagree with you.

No one expects it. He’s about as useful as Orlando Bloom, if perhaps slightly less annoying. Also, as far as I’m concerned, Sam Claflin is a no-name actor, which allows us to more easily accept him as a fairly attractive piece of eye candy (for those of the persuasion), and a relatively easily ignored piece of narrative furniture (for everyone else).

I think his first appearance in the film really stresses this. He’s just part of Blackbeard’s mast.

Speaking of Blackbeard’s mast, I simultaneously love and hate the role played by the infamous vessel Queen Anne’s Revenge. I love it because it, like Blackbeard, is one of the great pirate ships in history and myth, and the film absolutely treats it thus. QAR gets a much more reverent treatment than Blackbeard, who is paranoid and mentally fragmented from the prophecies of his zombies from the get-go (“THE ONE LEGGED MAAAAAN!”). The ship is huge, it’s dark; it’s barely controlled chaos. It represents Blackbeard’s reputation better than Blackbeard. It (literally) dwarfs the Black Pearl, which was previously held up as the most fearsome mortal ship on the sea. And, perhaps most interestingly, it is left in the hands of my favorite pirate, Hector Barbossa.

All said I did really enjoy PoTC 4. It marked a series return to a lot of what made the first movie great. It certainly had its pitfalls. If this makes any sense, it had good issues. They were the issues of a series being rejuvenated and not the issues of a series dying. I don’t know if they plan to make any further PoTC movies but they have certainly separated the wheat from the chaff. Stranger Tides is a movie that fans of the franchise will not be embarrassed to place on their shelves alongside the previous films. I know I might even push it up next to the first movie while accidentally knocking at least one of the other two completely off the shelf.

Given my immense bias towards the Pirates films, there was never a question of whether my review would be favorable. The question was: Will I be enthusiastically trumpeting its successes, or will I be savagely defending its wounded honor? For the most part, it has been the former. By my own admission, the movie has its faults, both in and out of the context of the other three, but as James said, those issues are simply indicative of the g-forces generated by turning the franchise in a new, brighter direction. It may not be the strongest entry in the series (which most people agree is Curse of the Black Pearl), but neither will it be the last we hear from the Pirates of the Caribbean.

This Time Without the Elf: Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides

Scotty: Well ahoy there mateys! And welcome to our latest installment of Scotty and Zoe talking about movies. This week we review Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Zoe: Did you really just say that? Also, I’m pretty sure they know what movie we’re doing if they read the title.
 
I promise, that will be my extent of pirate slang. Plus, we want to pretend that this is an actual transcript of what we’re saying and not us pretending that we’re actually this eloquent when we speak.
 
It was my turn to be late to the movie this week and I did what any normal person would do. I queued up “He’s a Pirate” on my iPod, put it on repeat and sped towards Rio. It was as awesome as it sounds even if I was minus my gay pirate hat (it has rainbow trim) and it totally got me pumped for the movie.


Ah yes, Hans Zimmer tends to get into one’s blood.


On Stranger Tides is our mini-reboot of the Pirates franchise. Gone are the characters whose arcs were completed at the end f At World’s End.


Or we were just really tired of.


Are you saying you’re tired of the monkey?!


The monkey was in On Stranger Tides. Just in a really small amount, which it should be.


Enough to utilize the 3-D, but I wanted more monkey!


You would. I tend to find comical animal side characters to be annoying, unless it’s a dog. Preferably a pug


He didn’t talk, so I was okay with it. Anyways, our latest installment finds everyone’s favorite pirate, Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) searching for the fountain of youth and the components of a ritual allowing one to take advantage of it. This time he’s joined by pirates Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and Angelica (Penélope Cruz), a level 20 cleric (Sam Claflin)...


We are not that nerdy. Or at least, I’m not that nerdy.


I am currently wearing a Doctor Who t-shirt, I am totally that nerdy. The character’s actually named Philip but I think they only refer to him by name once.


There're mermaids, Spaniards, Barbosa has a peg leg that holds rum and is now a privateer for King George III-ish, oh and Blackbeard’s a voodoo master. Why you ask? Just because, don’t ask stupid questions. There are lots of plot points I could go over, but this movie is about two and a half hours long and the general story structure isn’t all that different from the other movies. Betrayal!
 
I’m rather disappointed with Blackbeard’s character. There are actual historical accounts of Blackbeard lighting his beard on fire just to freak out enemies. Yes, they did that in the movie, for one scene, but it was two little embers at the end of puny chin-braids. They had something really awesome based in fact that could’ve been Bruckheimered up into pure epicness. But no, they had to do some weird voodoo shit.
 
His ship captains are zombies, he makes voodoo dolls, keeps captured ships in bottles and he controls the ship with his magic sword.


Remember in the first Pirates where there was only one thing that was crazy?
 
Can we go back to Curse of the Black Pearl? Before they embraced the crazy? There was no need to make Blackbeard voodoo-y. They got three interesting bits out of it; a scene with a Jack voodoo doll that was creepy, a scene with a Jack voodoo doll that was funny and a scene where the crew gets tied up by the magical rigging when they try to mutiny. Three scenes in a two and a half hour movie are not worth the crazy and the whole subplot could have been cut to make the movie shorter.


I really didn’t like those scenes. I just wanted Blackbeard to light his head on fire. Also, the craziness led the way to CGIness, which is ubiquitous today in the modern action/fantasy film. However, I still hate it. Scenes that are almost all CGI make a movie look corny and detract from the movie as a whole.
 
Especially if you’re switching from a real life person to a CGI person. Mermaids, I’m looking at you. Part of the ritual requires the capture of a mermaid and when they show up, it’s all well and good. They’re played by real people, have strategically placed hair and CGI tails that just flap around. One tries to lure a pirate down in the water with her and as she does, turns on her monster face which I’m going to guess the face is CGI. From there, everything goes CGI.


I find it funny that they turn into a combination of fish, vampire and Spiderman. I don’t get the Spiderman part. Maybe one day I will...
 
The first two made it cool, the third made it silly. I’m not even sure what they were “web slinging,” seaweed? They were so obviously fake too, especially compared to what we first saw.


Seaweed.
 
I don’t think seaweed works like that.


Hush, this is Pirates. A mermaid can secrete seaweed at high velocity if they want it to.
 
And use it to pull guys into the water. There’s also the end, which I can’t really talk about without spoiling so I won’t use details. I will just say that there is CGI involved that seems a bit out of place with the rest of the movie and the same outcome could have been down a lot simpler and cooler.


A much better use of CGI comes about a scene or two later when Barbosa’s ship and crew is torn apart off in the distance by what I assume are angry mermaids. All you see are indistinguishable things swarming the rigging and pulling the ship down. It’s creepy and I liked it.


To me it seemed like a great WTF? moment.


I loved it. You know what else I love?


Smooth jazz?


I love a segueway into talking about the characters!


Sigh, this means I need to stop playing flash games while Zoe types. Well, the plot had its craziness with boatload (ha ha) of myths mixed in. I prefer the simplicity of the first movie, but I guess after what happened in World’s End, there’s no going back. What’s nice is that Elizabeth Swan and Will “Legolas” Turner are missing from this story. That makes me very happy.
 
While I think I may be one of the only people to actually like Elizabeth’s character (most of the time), everyone who went to go see Curse of the Black Pearl left thinking how awesome Jack was and not really caring about our lovebirds at the center of the story. Disney apparently didn’t realize this and more or less centered the entire trilogy around them and their love story. Now with our reboot, they do what everyone wanted from Dead Man’s Chest and switched plot lines.


Well, there is still a romantic plot with the main characters, but it is more of a Jack Sparrow love affair with enjoyable backstabbing and a lack of kissy-face. The other love story (sappy alert!) involves a missionary and a mermaid. They talk about forgiveness and stuff and they’re generally redeemable people, like how Turner and Swan were. Thankfully, their plot was in the background.
 
Its good B-plot stuff and it works its way into the main plot in a very well-crafted way. On top of that, it was a pretty believable version of a fairy tale-type love story. Also, it gave Sam Claflin an excuse to take off his shirt and just like Orlando Bloom donning the bandanna at the end of At World’s End, showing off his sailor tan made Philip inexplicably hotter.


I thought it was kinda far-fetched and put there for plot reasons. I only overlooked it because the entertaining Jack Sparrow and Barbossa were on screen more.

I do think the romance was something they could have easily cut to make the movie shorter but since it was there, I liked it.


I also liked Penelope Cruz’s character, mostly. (Even though she did kinda fill an obligatory token chick role. This movie would not pass the Bechdel test by any stretch of the imagination.) She had a good chemistry with Jack while still being an antagonist.
 
While we’re talking about characters, Blackbeard was awesome. Lack of flaming beard aside, I appreciated Ian McShane’s choice to go subtle with his portrayal. We already have Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush flailing and running about all eccentric-like and he’s following in the steps of Davy Jones who was played similarly. By playing it much more subdued, he comes across a lot more threatening than any previous villain. His evil reputation seems very much deserved and that Angelica, who is Blackbeard’s daughter, is in real danger if she stays with him.


That and he had to live up to the previous villain, cthulhu-face.


We’re complaining a lot but I did think this was a fun movie. It seems like they kept hinting at some dark stuff like the mermaids, how Barbosa lost his leg, and Blackbeard but held back for whatever reason. I think if they had either toned that stuff down or gone all the way (and cut out that voodoo nonsense), this movie would have been awesome! But the way it is, it’s pretty much your standard Pirates movie, fun but not trying anything new.


I thought the film was fun too, but I don’t think I’d want to see it again or at least not soon.


Where do you think it ranks with the other Pirates movies?


#2 behind Pearl.


I think it ties with Dead Man’s Chest for #2.

Dead Man’s Chest had that tiresome Turner/Turner plot that bogged down the movie. At least this one had pep.


It could have used a water wheel.