Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is not an important film (though it isn't a bad one, either), but a quick look at the picture's Rotten Tomatoes page poses an important question; when did critics stop reviewing the movie and start reviewing everything else? Few seem willing to consider the stand-alone merits of this picture; damn near every review I've read relates it to its predecessors, similar franchises, or even the offscreen lives of its creators. Tell me whether any of the following snippets help you understand the picture, really gain some sort of appreciation for what makes it good or bad or worth your time;
-"But then, to be truthful, there was no need for this movie at all – except, perhaps, to finance paving Bruckheimer’s driveway in gold leaf. And really, Johnny Depp – how many chateaux in France do you need?"
-"Before seeing "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," I had already reached my capacity for "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, and with this fourth installment, my cup runneth over."
-"Why would the Walt Disney Company, which distributes these movies, and Jerry Bruckheimer, who produces them, ever want to leave well enough alone? In Hollywood, gratuitous excess — not necessity — is the mother of invention."
Indeed, a fourth Pirates film may not be "necessary". But, going by the principle that sequels should exist only to complete the unfinished business of the first half, Toy Story 2 was not necessary either, nor was Bride of Frankenstein decades earlier. The point is, everyone from the local Palo Alto gazette to Roger Ebert has basically panned this film (as well as damn near every other recent sequel) for existing. How about acknowledging that it has been made, does exist, will always exist, and then examining the actual movie?
Trumpeted as a refocused, rejuvenated reboot, it in fact adheres strictly to the blueprint of the first three films--we have the eternally aloof, rum-guzzling Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), his MacGuffin (the Fountain of Youth), his authoritarian enemy (King George and Co.), his outlaw opposition (in this case, Ian Mcshane's Blackbeard), and a naive, fiendishly good looking young couple (not Orly and Keira but Sam Claflin as a priest and Astrid Berges-Frisbey as the mermaid he falls for) whose doomed love plays out against the backdrop of the stormy seas.
Yes, it's the same-old same-old, but that encroaching sense of businesslike blandness that bogged down the last installment, that feeling that everyone was just going through the motions on the way to their respective paychecks, is out the window. New blood was needed. New blood was brought aboard.
Rob Marshall has yet to develop a distinct directorial style, but because of his stage experience he knows what to do with dialogue--the expository scenes never feel as cut-and-dry as they did when helmed by Gore Verbinski, who knew his way around an army of undead pirates but not a basic two-shot. Penelope Cruz shows up as one of Sparrow's old flames, and if they don't whip up the crackling love-hate chemistry of say, Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones in The Mask of Zorro, they do strike sparks every now and then. Depp's as adept as ever with a one-liner, and, placed at the center of the story, he does some really solid work; this is closer to the perennially sozzled but endlessly inventive Jack we met in the first film, as opposed to the assembly-line, tic-dependent one we encountered in the last two. The action, as you'd expect from a Bruckheimer picture, is uniformly top-notch; the opening sequence with Jack darting and diving across the tops of speeding carriages is a real humdinger, and the much-discussed mermaid scene is vintage Pirates, an Indiana Jones moment for the Facebook generation. It's scenes like these, Rube Goldberg-esque explosions of ceaselessly kinetic one-thing-after-another inertia, that keep us coming back to this series. Not nearly as good as the first or second film, but lightyears beyond the is-it-time-for-the-wrap-party half-assery of the last installment, this is indeed a return to form for the series.
Having said that, this one lacks something the previous three had in spades; great villains. While the past two sequels were far from perfect, they did claim one major accomplishment--a hell of a baddie in Bill Nighy's tentacled terror Davy Jones. Curse of the Black Pearl also had a memorable antagonist, Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa. But with Jones down for the count and Barbossa popping up here as a sort of frenemy, all the evil-doing is left to Blackbeard. McShane kindles some of that Deadwood hellfire in his eyes and sports a bone-chilling baritone of a pirate's growl, but he's simply the weakest villain of the first four movies. Nonetheless, it's still a kick watching Jack go up against his other Great Enemy-the elements of time, space, and gravity, as he engineers an escape using coconuts, stages a prison breakout right under the nose of the law, or takes a spectacular nose-dive off a flaming tower.
As this point, I can see this series going one of two ways. It could turn into a constantly evolving, 007-esque mega-franchise, bringing in new characters, locations, and legends each time but keeping Depp at the swashbuckling center of it all. Or, it could get mired in its own mythos oncemore and sink, this time permanently. However, at this point in the series, Pirates is looking surprisingly fit.
On Stranger Tides is a franchise film, but it's not franchise filmmaking. If it never quite gives off that galvanizing charge of spontaneity and discovery the first film exuded (how could it?) it is still technically accomplished, winningly intelligent, and commendably free of Michael Bay cynicism or excessive commercialism . Those who dare write it off simply because they're sick of seeing Captain Jack on a movie poster commit mutiny most foul. B.
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I never thought I'd say this, but get the Target Lady an Oscar. In Bridesmaids, easily the best Apatow-era comedy not directed by Judd Apatow himself, Kristen Wiig proves that she has what it takes. The entire movie is a laudable accomplishment, successfully capturing the modern Thirtysomething in their native habitat for the first time, and finally presenting an accurate, organic depiction of that girly-girl-best-friends-club cute-but-catty thing we've all seen by the watercooler, at a bar, even on the wedding aisle. But, as a critic, it's hard to focus on anything but Wiig. As Annie Walker, an eternally single, chronically bitter woman competing with perpetually perfect McMansioness Helen (Rose Byrne) for the right to plan her best friend Lillian's (Maya Rudolph) wedding, she surpasses even the most generous expectations, turning in a perfectly calibrated, wickedly funny, even quietly devastating perf. The conceivable comparisons are endless-a toned-down Kristen Chenoweth, a ramped-up Meg Ryan, and so on and so forth, but her pixiesh presence and ability to mine both sympathy and schadenfreude from her audience remind me of no one so much as the late, great Judy Holliday. Wiig's given the lion's share of the killer jokes--the scene where she gets hammered in an attempt to cure her flight fear is a classic, as is the shockingly explicit opener--but, as with Holliday, some of her best moments are non-verbal; watch the look on her face as Lillian flirts with her fiance on the phone, or the smile she gives during the perfect little scene where she attempts to bake away her sorrow to the tune of Fiona Apple's "Paper Bag".
A boffo ensemble rounds out the package; Rose Byrne and Melissa McCarthy are never anything less than gut-bustingly funny, especially when they're playing it straight. Maya Rudolph turns in the kind of gently witty, quietly piquant performance that's quickly becoming her hallmark. Jon Hamm and Chris O'Dowd, as resident douchebag and knight-in-shining-armor, respectively, make the most of their limited screentime. These are classic performances, but the film itself falls just short of greatness. As with all Apatow pictures, the third act is more than a little long in the tooth, and, with a story that traffics in sardonic commentary on life's blunt realities, a fairy-tale ending is wholly unnecessary. Still, it's hard to watch Bridesmaids and not feel good; about yourself, about this movie, about the future of mainstream comedy. The folks onscreen may be celebrating a wedding, but we have something else to rejoice over; the birth of a star. A-.
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