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New Pirates movie closer to the original, but still falls short

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is closer to the original Disney ride experience than the previous chapters of the franchise were. But this is no compliment.
Film Review Pirates of the Caribbean
Johnny Depp’s charm endures as the mincing pirate Jack Sparrow

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Two stars out of four

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is closer to the original Disney ride experience than the previous chapters of the franchise were. But this is no compliment.

Under the helm of the Broadway-schooled Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine), this fourth adventure with Johnny Depp’s Capt. Jack Sparrow defies science by being mostly action without reaction. It’s as empty a vessel as a ghost ship.

Pirates 4 sets sail for the fabled Fountain of Youth, but it should have been a quest for real plot. The movie contains few genuine comedic or dramatic moments to break up the palpably fake swordfights, shootouts and deck-swabbing.

Depp’s charm endures as the mincing pirate Sparrow, who has become the actor’s most beloved character.

Yet he’s starting to wink at the silliness of it all, as in a scene where Sparrow stops a battle to inquire as to who’s fighting whom. It’s an understandable question in a movie as lazily scripted as this one (original writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio return).

Depp gets non-threatening support from new cast members Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane (TV’s Deadwood), both playing rival pirates.

As the legendary buccaneer Blackbeard, McShane makes for an imposing figure in his biker-inspired leather gear.

But he’s toothless in the terror department, because the emphasis is always on thrill, not kill — and the thrills aren’t guaranteed.

Geoffrey Rush is as reliably corny as ever as the rascal Capt. Hector Barbossa, whose motives and alliances change from movie to movie.

There are also sweet, yet totally unnecessary, cast additions in young new faces Astrid Bergès-Frisbey and Sam Claflin, as a mermaid-and-missionary couple intended to replace the written-out lovebirds played by Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom in the original trilogy.

Knightley and Bloom have been forgotten as the franchise begins a new series of stories with very few fresh ideas. But Claflin goes them one better: his performance and screen time are so insubstantial, we forget about him for stretches of the movie.

Just one scene impresses, and it’s noteworthy for being completely out of sync with the rest of the picture. It’s a ghastly visit to a secret cove of mermaids, who turn out to be as vicious as vampires when provoked.

This interlude will terrify the tots that the rest of the film tries so hard to serve, and it also suggest how much better the franchise would be if there were anything truly at stake, or anything packing or potent in all those pistol shots and sword thrusts.

An early repeat cameo with a figure who inspired Depp provides a couple of good lines, all the more memorable for their incongruity.

Pirates 4 struggles to stay afloat but finally sinks under the weight of its computer-rendered fakery, which the addition of 3-D does absolutely nothing to improve — and neither does Hans Zimmer’s obstreperous score. It’s faint praise to say that this film is marginally better (and slightly shorter) than Pirates 3, which was subtitled At World’s End.

Depp says he’ll stop making Pirates of the Caribbean movies when they wear out their welcome. Well, the metaphorical plank may finally have been walked.

And it’s a sad thing, given that the original Pirates of the Caribbean was a welcome surprise in the long-ago summer of 2003. Not to mention that rarest of things: a blockbuster comedy that was funnier and smarter than anyone had expected.

Pirates 4 will open huge, despite what critics say. But it looks doubtful that it will stay afloat for long into the summer.

Peter Howell is a syndicated Toronto Star movie critic.