Bloody Pirates!!

5 Reasons Why On Stranger Tides Felt Like a Cheap Sequel

I finally saw the new Pirates movie and while I feared the worst going in, it was okay, and just okay.  While the stronger points of the previous films are still there, the film has several flaws that bring it down.  

1. The Cast: While good ole Jack Sparrow, Barbosa, and Gibbs come back to shine, the absence of the remaining characters is sorely missed.  I'm not even talking about Will and Elizabeth because their story was effectively concluded in At World's End.  No, I mean Ragetti (wooden eye guy), Peintel (wooden eye's friend), Marty (the midget), Cotton, and Cotton's parrot.  The audience has gotten to know this quirky crew over three films and it's really disappointing that not a one of them appeared in this one.  Instead, they are replaced with a bunch of pirate red shirts with little to contribute on screen and that the audience doesn't really care about.  It just felt like we were in a different universe without all these familiar faces to ground us.  
2. The Little Mermaid: This is part of the first reason, but it was such a glaring drag, it warranted its own category.  A sub plot of the film involved the pirates capturing a mermaid and one of the crew (who looks suspiciously like Prince Eric) falling in love with her.  These two are  incredibly weak stand-ins for Will and Elizabeth.  Like I said, we already don't care about the new crew and giving one of them some extra story that's separate from the main characters (especially Jack) is really detracting.  Sam Claflin, who played the new pretty boy, deserves his own Razzie for "More Wooden Than Orlando Bloom."  
3. TLI: A problem with At World's End was too much information was thrown at the audience that it was a little difficult to keep up during a single viewing.  On Stranger Tides did the opposite, there was too little information.  Like the previous films, it introduced new villains, mysticism, and myths that are explored, but a lot is left unexplained.  Where does Blackbeard get his voodoo power?  We don't know.  Why did Blackbeard attack the Black Pearl in the first place?  We don't know.  Where did the Fountain of Youth come from, Calypso?  We don't know.  Why do the Spanish care so much about the Fountain?  The list goes on, making the audience feel less confused, but more unfulfilled.   
4. Soundtrack: The music of the new film was shamelessly recycled.  It sounded like the editors took the soundtracks from the previous films and just worked them in where they could.  The same score played almost endlessly and there was no attempt to create some new compositions or variations for the new circumstances.  I remember hearing only one new song on a spanish guitar, and it was a marginal change.  
5. A few shillings short of an Epic: This is more a problem with how the franchise was handled as a whole.  The producers really outdid themselves with the massive scale of At World's End that any followup films would pale in comparison, which this one did.  Now, I'm glad they didn't try to overreach themselves by trying to go bigger, but the film did feel a little less thrilling than its predecessors with lower stakes and smaller action.  A better way would have been to make each film a stand alone adventure and each one would slowly build on the other.  Coulda, woulda, shoulda.  

While I won't say I regretted seeing On Stranger Tides, I can't say I walked out of the theater feeling invigorated either.  When I saw The Curse of the Black Pearl, I was so taken with it that I grabbed as many friends and family that I could find and took them with me on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th viewings.  After this last one, I just started to forget about it a bit.  I felt like I had seen an enjoyable TV movie; just something I didn't mind doing when I had nothing else to really do.  I can only hope these flaws are corrected in any future installments.