Fifth instalment of the rampaging-robots franchise topples Wonder Woman, while Diane Keaton lights up Hampstead in a kooky romance
Published: 28 Jun 2017
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The former Beatle will follow in the footsteps of Keith Richards with a cameo in the latest sequel, appearing alongside Johnny Depp and Javier Bardem
Director Gore Verbinski was a punk guitarist himself and must have been in on the joke. Verbinski's Mouse Hunt was well-liked, but too mechanical to be funny; here, everything has a life to it. The fruit and ham turns by Depp and Geoffrey Rush [playing it much closer to the traditional pirate stereotype] are nicely balanced by Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, who are straight but spirited. Knightley gets a few of the film's comic lines: "You like pain? Try wearing a corset." It's all nicely paced and easily beats its Disney rival, Sinbad, which starts almost identically, but stays closer to the kids' movie template. Pirates of the Caribbean smacks its comedy up against bone-shuddering battles and, like even the worst pirate capers, has ships of great beauty.
Verbinski, who made an unlikely film star of Lee Evans, packs his cast with Brits [Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce and Mackenzie Crook among them]. This is a timber-shiverer of the first order and Depp's performance is a front-runner for the most eccentric of the year.
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The good news is that this follow-up does recapture some of the high-seas high spirits of the first movie, but it requires an awful lot of momentum-gathering to get there. It would take the rest of this page to explain the convolutions the story goes through in order to split up all the characters then bring them together again: there's a key to acquire, a chest to find, a magic compass, a voodoo fortune teller, some signed letters, a mythical sea beast, and more. Added to which, virtually everyone from the first movie reappears at some stage, which can get mighty confusing after a few years away. They'd have done well to provide a "previously on Pirates of the Caribbean" prologue. Oh yes, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley were about to get married, weren't they? But their nuptials are immediately disrupted by slimy British envoy Tom Hollander, who arrests them all for helping Johnny Depp escape, then sends Bloom off to find him.
And where's Johnny? Having taken control of both the ship and the movie so effortlessly in the first Pirates, Depp's Jack Sparrow seems unsure where to take either here. His crew are waiting for him to set a course, and we're waiting for him to do something funny. It can't have helped that Russell Brand has poached Depp's nautical dandy style in the interim, but soon enough he's rocking a new look, as chief of a politically suspect tribe of "primitives": eyes painted down his face, his head stacked with haberdashery, accessorised with a necklace of human toes and a feather duster. It'll be on the catwalks by autumn, rest assured.
It takes a tortuously long time to get all the narrative plates spinning, but things fall into place once the real villain of the piece is unfurled. This is Davy Jones - of locker fame - and if that sounds like a cliché too far even for a camp pirate flick, Jones, played by Bill Nighy, and his crew are to this film what Depp was to its predecessor. They're like a bad acid trip at the sealife centre. They sail in a living wreck and have bodies composed of aquatic lifeforms: one has the head of a hammerhead shark, another has cheeks like a pufferfish, and Jones himself has a giant lobster claw for a hand, and a wonderfully slimy octopus head with a prehensile beard of tentacles, through which he barks the fruitiest Scottish brogue this side of the Simpsons' Groundskeeper Willie. It's a triumph of special effects that this cephalopod creation is both unnervingly freakish, yet unmistakably Bill Nighy.
After flirting with Looney Tunes comedy, Hollywood pastiche, Peter Jackson-style grandiosity, and seafront pantomime, it eventually becomes clear what course the Pirates franchise has really plotted: a packed universe of characters; epic action; strange lands; freakish monsters; a curiously sexless central couple. This isn't an updated swashbuckler, it's a backdated Star Wars! The comparisons are too plentiful to put down to coincidence. Not only does the narrative arc parallel that of the Empire Strikes Back, but virtually every character here has a Star Wars equivalent. Mackenzie Crook and Lee Arenberg are the substitutes for R2D2 and C3PO, commenting from the sidelines, while Naomie Harris's swamp-dwelling prophetess is a Yoda surrogate. One wonders what George Lucas's reaction will be when he watches the movie.
Unfortunately, the Star Wars connection applies to Orlando Bloom, too. He's a Mark Hamill in the making. He's simply too boyish to conjure any sort of heroic authority. Perhaps it would be better for everyone if Keira Knightley turned out to be his sister, and there are hints that Depp's Jack Sparrow has the potential to do a Han Solo.
A new Star Wars - or perhaps Sta-Haaar! Wars - is exactly what the movie world wants, and possibly needs, and Pirates is now more primed than any other product to step into the breach. Unlike other recent contenders, such as The Matrix, Pirates knows its mythology is pure cod. Where others have imploded in their own pomposity, Pirates' self-awareness sees it through. Despite all the fits, starts, and flaws, there's enough invention and energy here to make you want to see the next instalment.
Is Pirates of the Caribbean ok for 7 year old?
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is an adventure fantasy movie targeting an audience from adolescent children upwards. Many scenes are too violent and scary for children under 12. The main message from this movie is to live life for the moment.
Which Pirates of the Caribbean is considered the best?
1 Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl The Curse of the Black Pearl is the best Pirates of the Caribbean movie and, frankly, it is not even close.
Why is Pirates of the Caribbean so loved?
The fast paced action like the swordfight between him and Barbossa at the end, two immortal pirates locked in an everlasting battle. This makes the film wide ranged because has romance, action, comedy, and fantasy, this helps the film appeal to a wider audience.
Why is Pirates of Caribbean so good?
Pirates of the Caribbean uses comedic characters to tell the movie's story, starting from Jack Sparrow to Ragetti and Pintel to Hector Barbossa, the ferocious pirate. The movie does a great job of balancing the quirky energy of Jack Sparrow and the conventional classic hero character of Will Turner.