Plundered to Death

Well, we went and saw Pirates of the Caribean: On Stranger Tides.

Did I like it? Yes. Did I love it? No.

I’d not been too crazy about more “Pirates” movies to begin with, to be honest. But the fact is that I love Jack Sparrow to pieces [of eight]. He’s one of the best characters to come along in quite some time, in my opinion.  I figured if they’re going to send more of him our way, then I’d welcome it.

But the truth is my apprehension proved correct. All the time I’d been watching the movie I’d been wondering why I’d been there. Again, it’s not that the movie is bad in the least. Just that enough is enough. It felt nearly forced. I mean, I’d not been entirely keen on the last two. It’s also true that I didn’t dislike nor like them. It felt forced then. So to go on and give us yet another tale... well, I just couldn’t be excited about it.

And the general consensus is that they’ll be bringing two more films. I think I’m going to wait until home video for those.

For the record, I did not see it in 3-D. I had sort of wanted to, just to give it that extra edge since the first three movies had not been. But then, there’s these two factors: When 3-D is post production [a la not filmed/shot in 3-D] it shows. Second, some of the people I went with don’t like 3-D at all. I thought perhaps if I loved the movie I’d go check it out again with the enhancement. But sadly, that’s not going to happen.

It has some great F/X and such I’ll give it that.  The mermaids are very cool!  Although I had to roll my eyes at an aspect of them (hint: teeth) but that's just my personal bias - yet it didn't swim right with Bart either, who adores mermaids.

I’d just not been “on board” - and I had desired to be.

Let this, then, serve as a reminder that it’s entirely possible to push a story too far. Sequels must be done when and only when the story is worth telling for sure. And no, that is not a slam against Tim Powers, whose book they plundered to create this movie. Admittedly I have not read his book, but I’m pretty confident that it has its own flair, not mucked up by the nearly-not-quite-rehashed characters in the Disney movies. For it’s a fine story, to be fair. But coupled with MORE of the SAME, well, it ceases to be a treasure.