Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides

Release Date: May 20, 2011

Watch Date: April 19-20, 2025

“Johnny Depp returns as Captain Jack Sparrow in a tale of truth, betrayal, youth, demise…and mermaids. When Jack crosses paths with a woman from his past (Penelope Cruz), he’s not sure if it’s love or if she’s a ruthless con artist using him to find the fabled Fountain of Youth. Forced aboard the ship of the most feared pirate ever, Jack doesn’t know who to be frightened by more – Blackbeard (Ian McShane) or the woman from his past.”

This movie is not as good as the trilogy that came before it.

Of course, I don’t know many people who were expecting it to be. But still, you can’t help but be a little disappointed coming off the original POTC trilogy.

Some of the characters are there, three of the characters are there, and two of the returning characters are the two most beloved characters of the franchise but it’s not enough. The epic sense of finality that had been built up by At World’s End means that you can’t just start all the way back over again. You can’t take these characters and suddenly have Jack lose the Pearl, again, and have Barbossa working for the British crown. You can’t give Jack a love interest. It doesn’t work that way.

Now, if you want to just watch a movie of Jack Sparrow being Jack Sparrow, sure, this will scratch that itch.

What this feels like is the novels that get written to expand on the canonical universe after a movie franchise is successful. Star Wars is famous for those. Are they canonical? Sure. But you don’t have to read them. They help build the world, but a vast majority of fans would just skip them.

I would probably just skip this one, to be perfectly honest.

And it sets itself up for a sequel, and I hate that. It comes off as cocky. They got one good trilogy so they’ll tell a complete story, like they did for the first POTC movie but then kind of leave it open ended that there may be more if enough people come to the theater, just in case? I mean, I get the practice, but just tell a story for the story’s sake sometimes. Especially when you’re tacking it on for money so obviously at the end of one of your most successful franchises.

This is not necessarily a bad movie, but it’s definitely the weakest link in the Pirates chain so far, which is disappointing when they just kept progressively getting better up to this point.