Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Ten years ago acclaimed actor Johny Depp decided to completely do away with the entire pirate cliché and put his own personal spin on a classic archetype.  Channeling Keith Richards and Pepe Le’ Pue he created legendary pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, a character so unique and so interesting that it turned an overused stereotype into a classic movie character and has become one of the most influential (if not one of the most important) characters in the history of film. Although the two sequels may have floundered compared to the genre-bending first film they did contain several key moments and scenes that were flat out brilliant, but none of them could compare to Depp’s ingenious interpretation of Captain Jack. So… does Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides stack up to the original film, or flounder like the disappointing sequels?

I hate to say it, but it doesn’t even compare to the lame sequels. Despite a talented cast, director and writer the film comes off as being over-produced, underwhelming, and hastily written. Johny Depp and Geoffrey Rush can only do so much with this script, and while they do manage to drive the plot forward to the best of their abilities even they can’t make this noisy mess of a story work. How could they screw this up so badly? Where do we begin on our doomed journey to the Fountain of Youth?

The biggest and most glaring problem with the film is tension, or should I say, the absolute lack of tension throughout the entire freaking movie. Nothing is at stake during this adventure and nothing is presented to the audience to make us care about the overall outcome of the events We are treated to beautiful scenery and amazing visuals, but without anything to drive the plot forward or any consequences to make us care about the journey it is nothing but a two hour photo session. Creating stakes isn’t hard to do, in fact it’s so easy that it’s almost like an equation in a film with a simple line of dialogue such as “If we don’t ___________, then ___________ is going to __________”. A story without tension is one of the biggest travesties you could commit when writing an adventure story, because without any tension surrounding the overall outcome of a struggle even the most brilliant set pieces and action scenes amount to nothing at all because quite simply… there are no stakes.

Now I’d like to compare the absolute lack of stakes in this film to my favorite all time episode of Doctor Who entitled “Let’s Kill Hitler”. The episode revolves around the Doctor trying to not only rescue Rory and Amy from a renegade sentient robot, but also trying to redeem River Song and convert her from a hired killer into the strong, independent hero she would eventually become. As if this isn’t already enough for one person to deal with, add to this dilemma the fact that the Doctor has been poisoned, and he only has a limited amount of time before he dies in the middle of his desperate mission. The entire episode is so chock full of beautiful and meaningful moments of discovery from each character that entire character arcs could be better explored in this one episode than most epic film franchises have in an entire trilogy. But… the most important thing about this episode in relation to this article is that within fifteen minutes this episode effectively establishes incredibly crucial stakes, and several of them.

1.      If the Doctor dies before getting River to save them, then Rory and Amy will die.

2.      If Rory and Amy can’t get the council to redact their judgment, River will die.

3.      If River doesn’t realize the error of her ways, the Doctor will die.

These conflicts help make all of the desperate situations in the show that much more desperate as the time ticks away. The Doctor is slowly dying an agonizing death,  River is facing disillusionment and regret at the choices she has made during her lifetime, and Amy and Rory are fighting off a swarm of killer robots while trying to convince a judicial council that they have made the wrong decision about the judgment they have passed. The high stakes of this episode transform every single act in the episode into a life or death moment, I mean the Doctor can barely crawl to the Tardis in some scenes as he attempts to save Amy and Rory, and he realizes that if he fails to convince River to renounce her ways then Amy and Rory are as good as dead.

Now sure, for a show that deals with potentially universe destroying problems on a weekly basis the potential loss of four lives aren’t exactly devastating, but the point is that stakes are simple to incorporate into any setting in a story. In Doctor Who they were able to establish these stakes simply, organically, and quickly without resorting to a clichéd doomsday line like “If we don’t ______ within the next _______, it’ll be the end of the world as we know it!”. And even though this line may be clichéd I have no problem with something THAT simple in a film compared to the nothingness of POTC: OST. Pretty much any film you can think of that had a lot of tension (which is a NECESSITY in an action film) had something at stake. Indy and friends in Raiders of the Lost Ark were chasing the Ark because if the Third Reich found out how to use its’ power they would become invincible, if Vader was victorious in Empire Strikes Back then the Rebellion would have lost its’ final hope in defeating the Empire, if Theo didn’t get the baby to The Human Project in Children of Men then the world would never figure out how to cure the worldwide sterilization, and if Andy didn’t get out of Shawshank then the warden would get away with murder, embezzling, and extortion.

Now using the information you just read, what were the stakes in Pirates of the Caribbean? What would have happened to any of the characters, ANY of them, if they had not succeeded in their crusade? Blackbeard wasn’t dying of old age, Angelica wasn’t dying of scurvy, Jack Sparrow wasn’t dying of being way too awesome, no one had anything to lose if they hadn’t found the fountain. In fact there’s one scene where the Spanish destroy the fountain for no apparent reason and everyone just sort of stands around for a few minutes with a “Gee, now what do we do?” look on their faces. Yeah, sure, some stuff happens very late in the film which makes the fountain much more important to some wounded characters, but the point is that these dummies left to find it knowing that:

1.      They were in fine health and not mortally ill

2.      The fountain only extended life proportionally, it didn’t make you live forever

3.      The journey to the fountain was very dangerous and a lot of people would probably be killed

A lack of stakes is such a travesty against a story that this alone would have been enough for me to turn people off from seeing it, but sadly this is not the only problem. There are a lot of scenes just sort of shoved into this movie that don’t feel like they belong, and to make it worse these scenes assault the eyes and ears with overly produced scenes and overly loud action pieces. This tactic of filming action scenes happened non-stop in the second and third movie, but it wasn’t as irritating in those films because they primarily dealt with legends of the sea with every action scene. Whenever there was action happening on screen there was usually a legend like Davy Jones, tribal rituals, shipwreck graveyards, the Charybdis, Aztec gold, and mythical monsters like the Kraken attached to the action scene to give it levity and that sort of “Legends of the Sea” feel to it. In this film there is one action scene involving mermaids which is kind of mediocre, but for the most part there isn’t any levity or meaning to these over the top action scenes since there is never really anything hanging in the balance, and at this point it just seems really, really old hat.

This is really a shame since there are quite a few things in the film that really worked quite well for the film, most notably (no surprise here) Johny Depp reprising his role as Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp has never shied from the idea of proclaiming Jack to be his personal favorite of all his roles, and his reverence and love for the role is in full view here. He returns as Jack with a sort of childlike glee and passion that makes this a standout role even for someone with a film history as distinguished as his. On the flip side of this joyful turn in is the equally stellar Geoffrey Rush returning as Captain Hector Barbosa, brining an angry and dark but spirited portrayal to the table. The two of them have always had an outstanding chemistry between them that borders on divine, a sort of oil and vinegar chemistry, and they play off of each other as well and believably as bickering siblings.

A talented supporting cast helps bring life to the characters of the film (the one bright spot of the movie), but sadly the real waste of the movie is the always amazing (and one of my favorite actors) Ian McShane as Blackbeard. It’s not that he’s bad, in fact quite the opposite, he is so freaking good in his role (channeling all of his Deadwood Al Swearingen angry greatness) that I couldn’t wait to see him on screen as soon as he walked off. He exudes such a quiet menace and dismissive attitude towards everything around his that I was riveted to my seat. In every scene his pure, unchecked disdain towards every single person around him is palpable, as if every person around him is nothing but a waste of his time. It could almost be confused as boredom, but the brilliant hatred he seeps off of himself in each scene is so cool that I always wonder why he isn’t in every movie ever made.

And sadly, that’s the problem he has in this film, lack of influence. The first time he walks out on deck and shows what he’s capable of is awesome, but after that he’s barely in the movie! When he does have a scene it typically consists of him speaking a handful of lines, exits screen left, and then we are McShane-less again for about ten or fifteen minutes. How are we supposed to fear and hate a protagonist who barely has any screen time? It’s kind of hard to fear a villain when all of his coolest stories are actually told to us by other characters instead of shown to us.

There are a bunch of other things wrong with film, but they don’t measure up to the problems I already listed. Weak, if not just weird, writing, bad cinematography, poor, uneven pacing, countless anachronisms (flamethrowers for God’s sake?), and breaking my suspension of belief are some of chief complaints. Now what do I mean by “breaking my suspension of belief”? Pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Whenever I watch a movie I always slip into a mode where I realize I’m watching a movie, so I should just check my knowledge of physics, luck, and human strength at the door, but at a couple of points in the movie this film just went so far that it surpassed suspension of belief and just plain didn’t make sense.

For example, I watch a film like Raiders of the Lost Ark and I can get behind the idea of Indy getting dragged behind a car, or wrapping his whip around a branch and swinging from it, because they are things the body is capable of. Sure they might be things that you could only do once in a blue moon (like making your whip do that), or things that only a person in peak physical condition can do (Like surviving some of those stunts), but they are possible under the right circumstances. Furthermore, after watching Indy getting dragged for like half a mile behind that supply truck we are treated to a scene of Indy in bed, writhing in pain, tending his wounds, and so tired that he even falls asleep despite the prospect of sex. We see the consequences of those actions, and even elaborate, impossible events seem much more possible with these scenes.

On the other hand, Pirates of the Caribbean characters seemingly do the impossible without any regards to physical limits or physics in general. At one point Jack stands on top a coconut tree and pulls a second tree back with a rope to a forty-five degree angle using nothing but his arms. There’s no reason, no explanation for how a hundred and sixty pound average guy can do this, no lead up, he just does the impossible without the faintest of reasons. Even stranger is the fact that even if you were bitten by a radioactive spider and you somehow could do that, he’s standing on top of another tree as he does this without being flung from it like a slingshot. There’s no reason this should happen, and it happens a lot in this film. There’s a swordfight on a rocking ship teetering over the edge of a cliff, and whenever one side weighs more it shifts to that side. This is an interesting and semi-original idea for an action scene, but during the whole fight the angles they are moving at and the weight distribution of the ship are all wrong! All the treasure on the ship shifts to the side going over the edge, but then Jack throws a book to the other side and suddenly everything is even again? I know it’s a small complaint and I know it’s just a movie, but these scenes really jar me out of the film.

It’s just sad to see the slow spin down the toilet bowl of a film franchise that started out as something so original and so promising. Although sporting a promising premise, a talented cast, and a beautiful locale, it still appears that this franchise has finally… run aground (groan).

5 out of 10

The Green Lantern

I apologize for the long absence, but for the past few weeks I headed home to visit the family for Thanksgiving. To relate this little trip to film, let’s just call this review my Season 2 premiere. I always feel strange slipping back into my critic role after a long hiatus, as I try my hardest to keep it from being a lazy, uninteresting, self-destructive, half-assed attempt… sadly the production team for The Green Lantern didn’t share my frame of mind.

The Green Lantern was the next chapter in DC’s attempt to bring the Justice League to the big screen, trying to ride the coat-tails of positive press and word of mouth that The Avengers is already receiving. Now so far Warner Brothers has been doing a pretty OK job of setting the stage for this franchise, if not doing it WAY too late to become an effective set-up for the Justice League movie. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy has become arguably the best comic book movie franchise in history, and despite the fact that I’m part of the tiny minority that seems to think so, I enjoyed Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns as a deliberately paced story instead of a comic action fest. So now we come to the third entry in the team, and along with The Flash and Wonder Woman we add another A-lister in the comic book universe with Hal Jordan, aka “Green Lantern”. Now I don’t know much about Green Lantern, as I’ve mentioned before (probably too many times) I grew up idolizing Marvel comics, but even without any knowledge of the franchise I still knew that with a few exceptions the entire team behind this film seemed to be phoning it in.

The film starts with a pretty OK origin story film, but despite setting up the film in a likeable if not overused way there seemed to be a lot of action movie clichés scattered about.

Cocky pilot with anxiety issues stemming from his father’s legacy? Check
Generic tough girl love interest? Check
Hero waking up next to attractive lady and running late for “the flight of his life”? Check
Completely unnecessary and hilariously inaccurate jet fighter sequence? Check
Emotional breakdown during key moment of the action scene that shows lack of nerves? Check
Board room reprimand and being told “He’s not his father” scene? Check

Still though, despite all these generic character traits for the main hero the film still managed to draw me into its’ story with half-decent writing, an interesting opening sequence in space, and Ryan Reynolds trying his ass off to make this work. This continues through the “discovery” phase and eventual “training” phase of the film, and I really liked the attitude of fun carefree enjoyment the movie seemed to have with this part. The first half or so of the film reminded me of The Last Starfighter both in tone and direction, and I actually thought I would really like this movie. Ryan Reynolds carries the role of Hal Jordan pretty dang well as he trains against impossible odds, discovers the true power that he holds in himself, and eventually makes the heroic choice to… immediately quit the Green Lantern Corps.

Oh… um… wait, what? He just quits? Well, uh… OK I guess. I mean, it must be really hard to know what to do with powers that the corps describes as limitless. I guess it would kind of make if you were responsible enough to relinquish those powers if you didn’t think that you could properly…

Ah Christ! They let him keep his ring and lantern? Is it just me or does this seem incredibly irresponsible to anyone else? I mean if you quit halfway through the police academy I’m pretty sure they don’t give you a badge and a gun as a farewell present, so why should they give a dropout something infinitely more powerful? Remember, this isn’t some guy who already proved himself worthy to the corps during his training, this dude is already looked down on by everyone in the corps including the leader Sinestro, who stated that he believes there was a large mistake in the ring choosing him. Well, maybe this is just a way to set Ryan Reynolds up to prove them wrong, to prove to them that he will do the right thing once he returns to Earth.

But nah, he immediately screws that up too. After the corps decided it would be a good idea to let him keep the gun he decides to just start waving it around in the air and showing it to all his buddies. After being told by his fish headed Green Lantern mentor how important it is to protect his identity the first thing this guy does is reveal himself to his best friend and the chick he wants to hop in bed with. Oh, by the way, did I say “best friend”? I should probably hold off on that term since the only link he seems to have with the story critical character is the fact that they know each other from work. Shouldn’t he trust someone a little more implicitly than “work associate” before he divulges the most important secret on the planet to him? Yeah, I know he helped him at the alien crash scene as well but even THAT seems like quite a lot to ask from someone whose first name you barely know.

Well, back to the action, we witness the first time Hal gets to use his powers in a practical situation, and even though creating a turbo jet car and a track out of thin air to keep a crashing helicopter away from innocent bystanders seems a lot more complicated to do than creating… I dunno… a WALL… or a PILLOW… it seems to work out well enough. Then of course Hal shows off his identity to what’s-his-face and what’s-her-name which goes against everything we know about the corps… then something happens… something else happens… the #2 bad guy gets a giant head and tries to kill Tim Robbins. Then Hal busts in and saves the day. The climactic battle ensues… and this is where things get just plain creepy.

I know I’ve stated before that setting up climactic and epic showdowns between the hero and villain has become way too much of a focal point in Hollywood action films, but there has GOT to be a happy medium between Transformers and Green Lantern. Yeah, Transformers may have had WAY TOO MANY explosions, gunfights, and giant killer robots, but do you want to know how the climax of Green Lantern plays out? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

SPOILERS BELOW

Hal comes smashing through the wall and saves How Stella Got Her Groove Back by creating a pool of water for her to fall into (and probably drown in), then gets knocked down by Big Head Guy (Bad Guy #2). Big Head Guy walks over to where he is lying helplessly, then falls over (yes, FALLS over, not lay down) and the two of the lay next to each other looking sheepishly into each other’s eyes. They take turns touching each other with their fingers while exchanging awkward quips, Big Head Guy burns Tim Robbins alive with some flame throwers while still looking into Hal’s eyes, and then Hal throws the bad guy into some steam, where he yells at him angrily before standing up and walking out the front door. I am NOT S**TTING you, that is how the climax plays out. If you think I’m exaggerating, feel free to watch the movie yourself and tell me otherwise.

END SPOILERS

So anyways, a whopping army of six whole Green Lanterns go to confront Bad Guy #1 (Parallax) in space who is controlling Big Head Guy on Earth. They of course get their asses kicked so Sinestro runs away instead of trying to help them and decides the best way to fight this power is by using the power of fear to create a yellow ring and defeat Parallax. For being the wisest and mightiest heroes in the galaxy these guys are practically retarded. They just saw the creation of this monster first hand when it tried to use fear, and the first thing they think of to fight is  “Well s**t, it seemed to work well for that guy, let’s do the same”. And this horrible idea stems from the loss of six Lanterns?

Listen… nobody likes losing their friends in battle, but when you take on this responsibility it seems that you are signing up to risk your life in defense of the universe. Losing six superheroes may sound like a crushing defeat, but just moments ago we saw an entire planet literally filled with Green Lanterns. Maybe instead of launching a last ditch campaign that will probably corrupt and eventually destroy every single Lantern you should try sending more than 0.00000000000000001% of your fighting force to deal with this guy, especially when just six of you seemed to be enough to almost defeat him in the last confrontation. Also, when a Lantern dies they don’t lose that power for the rest of time, the ring just finds someone new to wield it instead, so they could replace those lost lanterns in like, a month tops.

So the time for the final battle comes. Hal talks the council out of being stupid assholes and asks to let him fight Parallax instead. They snicker behind their hands and tell him sure… go for it, so he heads back to Earth to fight Big Head Guy. Hal is ready for the final confrontation, he’s pumped, he’s angry, and he uses his cosmic powers to… immediately surrender all over again and give that power to the bad guy (ugh). Why did the ring choose this idiot in the first place? So he hands over the ring… stuff happens again… Parallax shows up and says Bad Guy #2 has failed him (HOW?!? This dude just got you the most powerful weapon in the universe?) and kills him. Hal of course gets his ring back and creates a whole bunch of items to conveniently stop this planet sized dude.

Around this time I was REALLY starting to get tired of the Green Lantern creating items out of thin air to fight the bad guys. It was cool once or twice, but after about two hours it begins to stop resembling a superhero movie and starts to resemble Inspector Gadget. I looked up the wiki on Green Lantern and his powers are limitless, but apparently the only thing this movie decided to focus on was flying and making crap like jets (that somehow fly in space) up on the fly. Good guys win… Green Lanterns love humans, and they all live happily ever after.

So the story stinks, but at the very least it doesn’t suffer from the problem I pointed out in my last review, glazing over important components of the story arc. This film was written with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and more importantly it had an introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and a resolution. If a jumbled, disjointed mess like this film could get that right then I don’t understand how other big budget films could screw it up so badly.

It was a shame that this film failed so miserably because there were several things in it that really set it apart from other action films as well. Ryan Reynolds did a great job in the role of Hal Jordan, and this role is something of a record because it makes him the only actor I can think of who has played three major comic book characters (his other two were Hannibal King and Wade Wilson/Deadpool) well. He brought a sort of happy, childish glee to the role that I think every person in the world would exhibit if they got these powers. It reminded me of Chris Evans in Fantastic Four, who, if you remember, was the only good thing about that piece of crap movie as well. It was just really good to see someone embrace a role so completely that I have a feeling he probably grew up loving comic books.

The effects were pretty solid as well, and even though several parts of the film were purposely cartoony the majority of the film looked pretty polished and cool. It was also really nice to see prosthetics used instead of overusing CGI again, as Big-Head-Guy was a thousand times more real looking than any version of CG Yoda. Also nice to see was that the film wasn’t afraid to bring a sense of cosmic importance to the table, you really felt there was a lot at stake if the Lanterns failed. Just including the space aspect of the franchise was a breath of fresh air as well, since most comic book movies will neuter the space angle because they are afraid of alienating (no pun intended) the audience.

That being said, there were countless other things about the film that I hated, but didn’t bring up in my summary. One of the funniest that stood out in my head was the “lack of nerves” attack and flashback scene that Hal has in his fighter jet at the beginning of the movie. A few years ago there was a satire of jet fighter action movies called Hot-Shots, and one of the funnier spoofs included in the film was a very funny satire of Charlie Sheen freaking out in his cockpit whenever anyone mentioned his dad. The way it was shot, the voiceovers while it happened, the close-up of his face while the radio screamed in his ear, it all looked like a funny interpretation of every action movie ever where the hero has an emotional breakdown, and it was hysterical.

Unfortunately, the makers of Green Lantern decided to channel that exact scene in this film, and the result it just as hilarious, only not intentionally. They may as well have given Hal the callsign “Maverick-Right-After-Goose-Dies” he freaks out so badly, and even more ridiculous is the fact that absolutely NOTHING triggered his breakdown except for a picture of his father he keeps on his instruments gauges (because in flight school they teach you it’s smart to cover up your instruments with a whole bunch of random s**t). If he flies with that picture all the time then how come he’s never freaked out like that before? The Scene just came off sooooooo cheesy.

The cinematography is just as mediocre and generic as this scene as well, as almost every single shot of the film is a flat angle shot. No imagination or unique storytelling here, just flat angle shot after flat angle shot at every turn. Dance scene in the bar? Flat angle shot. Showing his costume to his friend? Flat Angle Shot. Talking to the Overlords about Parallax? Flat angle shot. Flat angle shot, flat angle shot, flat angle shot, flat angle shot, flat angle shot, flat angle shot, flat angle shot. The cinematographer broke new ground when he decided to show weapons materialize in Hal and Sinestro’s hands from a (gasp) low angle shot, and then showed Hal murdering a bunch of rowdy bar patrons with a giant fist from a (wait for it)… high angle shot. Even most of the jet fighter scenes were shot at a flat angle!

And oh yeah, the acting! Where the hell was it in this film? I can’t even imagine how irritating it must have been to be Ryan Reynolds and see everyone around you just reading their lines with no emotion, especially considering how hard he tried to make this movie work. The only other person in the film who didn’t look like he was ready for a nap was Tim Robbins, but his role was so minor and insignificant that his performance is mostly wasted. I don’t know who Blake Lively is, but I didn’t buy into her character al all. I have a feeling that Big Head Guy was trying to inject a sinister edge or something into his role and have some fun with it, but he just came of sorta gay and weird, especially in that awkward climax. Even the usually awesome Mark Strong came off sounding bored out of his mind, like he wanted to be in any film but this one.

Once again we are given a Hollywood assembly line action film, mostly devoid of feeling, personality, and soul. It comes off like a movie imitating a movie, with all the crucial points of a film replaced by sterile special effects and uninteresting characters. Despite the surprisingly likeable turn in from Ryan Reynolds and the generic but sort of enjoyable first half, the film’s self-destructive second half totally ruins what could have been a great comic film.

5.5 out of 10