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Angelica (Penelope Cruz) watches as her father, the pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane), bickers with Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.” |
You’d think adding carnivorous mermaids, zombified pirates, voodoo dolls, ships in magic bottles and the Fountain of Youth to a third “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel would make for one irresistible motion picture experience.
Nope.
It’s resistible.
For all its busy visuals and Hans Zimmer’s grandiloquent music constantly whipping and spurring our ears to attention, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” slogs along for 139 minutes without achieving a single moment of inspiration or suspense.
Not that “On Stranger Tides” lacks for entertainment. It’s a furious, nonstop action film laced with acts of disturbing violence (sharklike mermaids ripping a man to pieces in a dark crimson cloud tops the chart) and breathtaking stunts (clumsily utilizing obvious stunt doubles).
It also gives Johnny Depp his fourth opportunity to don the dowdy garb of the fey Captain Jack Sparrow, now trading comic barbs with a pirate queen named Angelica (Penelope Cruz).
“You walk like a girl,” Jack tells her.
“You should know!” she replies.
“On Stranger Tides” unceremoniously dumps franchise stars Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, whose non-pirate characters simply go missing in action here. (Read more…)