Series Review: Pirates of the Caribbean

Normally, when one hears of something like a movie being made based off of something like an amusement park ride, it’s time to run to the hills and hide, for Hollywood has struck again with its need to exploit anything and everything.  Thus, when I first heard that Disney was trying to turn Pirates of the Caribbean into a motion picture, I was more than a bit skeptical.  As it turns out, the presence of a fun script, an even funner Johnny Depp and the action-directing skills of Gore Verbinski came together to make what is one of the most entertaining pirate films every created.  As the movie expanded and became a franchise, however, it was quickly proven that not everything can last forever.  What began as clever became predictable and even Depp’s iconic character of Jack Sparrow began to grow tiresome.  What follows is an examination of the four-film series and why the pirate ship began to sink.

The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) -

The first film, The Curse of the Black Pearl brought a unique pirate adventure for people to enjoy.  We get an erratic and interesting Depp playing Jack Sparrow, top-notch actor Geoffrey Rush as the villain and some decent support in the form of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley.  This movie grabbed onto the burgeoning pirate craze and brought something to audiences that they had been craving and did very well because of it.

Verbinski, whom I am personally not much of a fan of, was the perfect choice of directors, able to capture the feeling of a fantastic pirate world and bring the spectacular action that such a project needed.  Some of the battle scenes are brilliant and the visuals in the film look great.  Even the script, which one might not expect to be amazing given the subject matter, manages to be captivating enough to draw you in.  There are few pirate films, in my opinion, which measure up to The Curse of the Black Pearl, despite a modest 79/85% bestowed upon the flick via Rotten Tomatoes.

Dead Man’s Chest (2006) -

And here is where things started to take a nose dive.  Personally, I don’t feel as if it was the script that killed it this time around (and caused the next movie to be even worse), though many may disagree.  To me, it just seemed as if Verbinski tried to do too much of the same thing with Dead Man’s Chest.  There is an obvious attempt to top the action sequences of the first film and this fails.  Instead of showing “bigger and better”, we are left with clever choreography turning steadily into the truly ridiculous.  And though the character of Davy Jones could have been truly terrifying, the mannerisms and character design left him looking more like a villainous buffoon.  Further, the bits of humor in the second Pirates film face the same problems as the action - they just tried to outdo themselves in a bad way.

At World’s End (2007) -

So with that said, what’s left to say about At World’s End?  Not much.  If you look at the Rotten Tomatoes listings, you’ll see that each film gets worse and worse as the franchise moves along.  Again, the main problems with this one were that it tried to keep upping the ante and creating something that was, in essence, the same as the first film only with bigger action, goofier gags and a more epic storyline.  In the end, it failed, leaving the series on a rather bad note.  Even the return of Geoffrey Rush to the franchise couldn’t add the fresh flavor it needed to excel.

On Stranger Tides (2011) -

This is the movie where I am torn between loving it and hating it.  On Stranger Tides brought us a more simplified story - the search for the fountain of youth.  The script is more solid than the previous two films, relying a bit more on the adventure aspect of pirate film instead of having giant monsters show up.  The furthest the film gets in being over-the-top is the presence of an army of cannibal mermaids, a scene that should probably have been left out entirely.  The biggest problem for me, and the thing that killed the potential for being this being a more serious entry into the franchise, was that they still tried to shove unnecessary action into it.  And due to the way the previous three films played out, everything they did looked pale in comparison to the others.  Final judgment - great script, good acting, very poor execution.  You can see by the ratings at Rotten Tomatoes that the franchise had bottomed out at this point.

But a fourth film tanking critically was not enough to stop the Pirates.  On Stranger Tides did, after all, manage to become the 12^th highest-grossing film of all time.  So where there is money, there is an attempt to make more.  Though nothing is known about what the fifth film’s plot will be, it is known it will begin shooting sometime next year and Depp is back for more Jack Sparrow (probably in part to a rather large paycheck he will no doubt receive).  They’ve brought in some fresh blood for the directing job, a couple of Norwegian guys known for a movie called Kon-Tiki (which I’ve not seen).  Let’s hope their new approach will bring a little spirit back to Pirates of the Caribbean.  Although, considering how much people liked (or rather didn’t) the last one, it may already be too late.

Photo Credits -           

Pirates of the Caribbean poster courtesy of sodahead.com

At World’s End courtesy of thecia.com.au