The story begins in London, where Sparrow learns of a fraud using his name to recruit pirates. But franchise screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, who loosely based their tale on Tim Powers’ non-Disney-related novel On Stranger Tides, include an overabundance of characters and motivations that feel anything but leaner and more concise, and more like At World’s End than any fan of the franchise would have wanted.

Admittedly, the concept of Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow seeking out immortality with a new franchise cast member, Ian McShane’s villainous Blackbeard the Pirate, on his tail sounds like a scenario ripe with potential. But the end result is no less overstuffed than its immediate predecessor, complete with a fracas of characters scheming and double-crossing to get their hands on this sequel’s MacGuffin: the fountain of youth. But there’s more of commercial in this film than cinema, the entire project stinking of that ‘obligatory Hollywood sequel’ stench.Īttempting to make up for the plot-drenched quality of At World’s End, the new film arrives at a comparably brief running time of 2 hours and 17 minutes (only The Curse of the Black Pearl was shorter). Regulars Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom also abandoned ship, leaving Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush to command a whole roster of newcomers into the fray. For the fourth entry, the original trilogy’s director Gore Verbinski has moved on to more ambitious projects (namely Rango) and handed the franchise’s reins to Rob Marshall ( Nine).

Backers guarantee themselves big returns with an established crowd-pleasing series, a celebrity cast, and ridiculously budgeted special FX shot in underwhelming 3D. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides serves little purpose, except to dim (albeit temporarily) those pesky dollar signs glinting in the eyes of Walt Disney Pictures and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

Pirates tides of fortune characters