Those of us who fail to see the fuss about the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise have every reason to build a shrine to Johnny Depp and genuflect, every day, in gravest gratitude. Imagine the actor's plight when first faced with the character, a buccaneer named after a bird, who comes off like a crackhead's conflation of Captain Hook and Peter Pan — part ravenous, scurvy-afflicted pirate, part impish boy who never really grew up. How does one play Captain Jack Sparrow?
A less adventurous (or more career-conscious) performer might have dug for inspiration in the Errol Flynn romps, stopping along the way to study the studly Burt Lancaster in The Crimson Pirate . Depp, instead, seemed to have been galvanised by Bunny Wigglesworth from Zorro, The Gay Blade , the limp-wristed twin of the legendary masked outlaw, and in the process, the star single-handedly invented a new shade of the summer blockbuster: the sashay-buckler.
When asked if he is Jack Sparrow in the new Pirates feature, On Stranger Tides , Depp replies, “There should be a Captain in there somewhere.” The riposte carries not the indignation of a lion affronted but the sweet-natured slap on the wrist from a simpering spinster. The head spins at Depp's capacity to coat his every utterance with a veneer of camp, manufacturing airy amusement out of the most leaden of lines. Without him, we non-fans would have nothing .
And yet, a little bit goes a long way, and it's not nearly enough. The first Pirates movie functioned as a never-before diversion, and the newness of it (along with the unexpectedness of Depp's performance) made up for a lot of its failings. But the subsequent episodes — and this one's no exception — are awash in a sea of bloat. As you shuffle out of the theatre — drained, a drooping heart inside a dead man's chest — you feel you walked in three days ago.
Like its predecessors, On Stranger Tides is about a vaguely supernatural quest that's etched out in the beginning and effected at the end but abandoned through entire swatches of the middle, where we seem to be witnessing a strange form of free-association between the action choreographers and the director Rob Marshall. When in doubt, cut to the chase — that's their philosophy. And we cut to chase after unending chase. Depp runs. The king's redcoats give chase. Depp runs. Blackbeard (Ian McShane) gives chase. Depp runs. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and Angelica (Penélope Cruz, claiming to be Blackbeard's daughter) give chase. Their grail is the Fountain of Youth, a plot point that could have driven a snappy Indiana Jones adventure instead of this creaky amusement-park attraction.
A couple of action scenes bubble with brio. I was especially taken with the old-fashionedness of Depp's escape from the king's clutches, where he swings from chair to table to chandelier to window to clothesline to street to a great number of moving carriages (one bearing a surprise guest star) to wooden plank to passer-by's head, until he comes to rest, face plastered amidst the monumental bas-relief breasts of the woman in the signpost of a tavern named The Captain's Daughter. This isn't digital dishonesty — it's as clean a choreographed action scene as from the Flynn features. A later stunt where Depp fashions a catapult out of a tree is another hoot.
The action, otherwise, is strictly standard. The only time anyone seems to be in any real danger is when murderous mermaids make an appearance, a strange sight to behold in the Disney universe, where they were last seen crooning after handsome princes, much to the dismay of Sebastian the Crab.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Genre: Action/Supernatural
Director: Rob Marshall
Cast: Johnny Depp, Ian McShane, Penélope Cruz
Storyline: The gang goes after the Fountain of Youth
Bottomline: More of the same.
