PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES REVIEW

The forth installment in the Walt-Disney franchise sees the return to a more simpler, light-hearted yet uninspired form of story-telling. Inspired by the novel “On Stranger Tides”, which Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio have taken various elements from to write the forth film and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer yet again but this time directed by Rob Marshall the film sees Jack Sparrow (Johnny Deep) return with a cast of new and old characters in the search of the Fountain of Youth.

Unlike the previous sequels, which ran a bit too long filled with confusing scenes of betrayal and plot-twists (Not confusing to me. I understood everything) and had a more obvious darker feel to it, On Stranger Tides follows in the footsteps of its original, The Curse of the Black Pearl, however, as short and simple as the film may be it still doesn’t match up to what Curse and even Dead Man’s Chest achieved.

Johnny Deep as the ever funny, witty, clever and unpredictable Jack…sorry, CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow is as always the main highlight when it comes to this film series but seeing the same character over and over again without any sort of new development or change to his character is by accounts disappointing. While Deep is still enjoyable to watch as always on the screen as Sparrow, he offers nothing new to what was shown in the previous films and thus while the film feels familiar it doesn’t feel new and improved.

Penelope Cruz joins the cast as Angelica who is someone from Jack’s past and his love interest in the film. Again, nothing we haven’t seen before but Cruz brings to it a unique relationship to Deep’s character not seen in other instalments and that is been an rival and female opposite of everything Jack is but managing to maintain a strong and sexy presence that previous films female lead Keria Knightly never managed to obtain. Add the fact Cruz’s acting talents while not all impressive is better than what Knightly brought with her in the series and Penelope is a bright new addition to the pirate cast.

Kevin McNally returns as Gibbs along with small supporting characters Damian O’Hare as Lieutenant Gillette last seen in Curse of the Black Pearl along with Greg Ellis as Lieutenant Theodore Groves who also appeared in Curse of the Black Pearl but last seen in At World’s End who occupy their screentime with Geoffrey Rush who once more plays the part of the brilliant yet devilish Hector Barbossa who is the only character who goes through a change and brings to it a different side of the character not seen before while sporting a Peg-Leg now. Here, Barbossa is working as a privateer in the court of King George II, helping the British to find the Fountain of Youth while hiding a secret agenda of his own. 

It was mostly the scenes with Rush and those with Deep and him together that kept the feel of the previous films and the scenes with them were as ever witty and filled with comedy that only the chemistry between Rush and Deep could bring to the screen. Two scenes in general that stood out to me personally was one including the two chanting away while trying their best to balance inside the wreckage of a ship and stop it from falling down into the abyss while also including one where they are tied up against Palm Trees. Here Rush lets out his more serious side of acting and it shows. Unlike Sparrow, Barbossa’s character is the one who perhaps goes through the most change in the film.

But while these characters are what keeps this film up from sinking there are others who ruin the potential for this to become as good as the other films, if not better, but it is because of these characters and their subplots that this sequel fails to be as memorial as the other films.

New comer Sam Claflin stars as a stalwart missionary Philip Swift who brings in a interesting interactions regarding religion, good and bad. While there is a lot of preaching from his character, again it was something new, however this is all ruined when Mermaid beauty Syrena (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) comes into the plot and the film tries forcing another love story down our throats. Their interactions while nicely done comes together in a forced conclusion and it doesn’t add anything to the overall plot. It almost makes you want the old star couple to return. Their lines of dialogue to one another is just pure cheesiness and unbelievable.

And then there is Oscar Jaenada as The Spaniard who only makes three appearances in the film and only appears on screen for about two to three minutes altogether. The character comes off as mysterious and dangerous but this is never mentioned or developed and thus the character and his subplot are a waste to an already large cast of characters plot-points. For a film that tried to capture the magic of its predecessor it seems as if it tried go in the big direction of its previous sequels.

Indeed, the plot ranges from many different things happening all at once. Jack appearing in London to save Gibbs, to been captured by the British to meeting up with Barbossa again to escaping the British and running into his old love to been betrayed once more to forcibly aiding Blackbeard (Ian McShane) into finding the Fountain while having to go through a set of trails in order to get to it and while the pacing manages to speed through without boring the audience and keeping them entertained with humour and actions every few minutes the film does at times feel rushed and seems to be missing scenes.

And speaking of Blackbeard, what is it with all these TV star actors and Director having taken part in this film? On Stranger Tides almost at times really does have the tone of a TV movie and not a high budget film and while Ian McShane tries his best to invoke a feeling of bad from his character, he just ends up becoming lame.

Unlike Barbossa from the first film or Davy Jones and Cutler Beckett from the second and third whose characters acted evil and cruel and showed cruelty, Ian McShane while his performance is enjoyable to watch just doesn’t come off as been as good the villains before him. Instead one almost feels sorry for him. For someone who Jack Sparrow mentions as been the Pirate that all Pirates fear, Blackbeard is anything but that. Nothing he does appears evil but acceptable and fair and in the end you can’t hate or like him and this is another aspect of the failure of the film. Instead of coming out as a badass, Blackbeard is instead a Ass. The only time he is shown to be any sort of threat is when he makes his first appearance and brings his ship The Queen Ann’s Revenge to life and uses it to subdue the crew.

That scene along with the Mermaids action sequence were the only two action scenes in the film I greatly enjoyed watching. Both brought to it a haunting atmosphere that started slowly only for it to build up and unleash a spectacular ride of madness upon the viewers.

The special effects were genially worthwhile to behold and the two original soundtrack scores by series composer Han Zimmer beautifully expressed that haunting sound of terror about to be unleashed.

And again that is another sad failure of the film. Those were in my opinion the only two good tracks (Blackbeard and Mermaid) in the film with everything else been tracks from all three movies mixed into one. The score is enjoyable to listen to, but they’re not original or sound as new as the previous ones and again it almost feels as if Zimmer got bored and rushed the soundtrack itself as well.

The action scenes themselves are bloated. There’s too many of them in the first few minutes and Rob Marshall shows a lack of talent for directing a action scene. Even the final battle at the Fountain of Youth doesn’t have the dramatic or epic feel of all the three films finals and it just ends before its even began or just overly pointless. Its meant to be taken as a fun family film but one cannot deny that previous installment had more of a epic and emotional final to them then this presented.

In the end On Stranger Tides doesn’t deliver the epic ness of its originals and feels like a movie that really wants to be more but ends up buried under a sea of pointless characters and too much action and plot points happening all at once instead of giving it time to develop fully and ends up giving off a rushed feeling.

Enjoyable to watch but not as good as the others and not worth paying a ticket to actually see on the big scream. Wait for the DVD OR RENTAL YO HO ME HEARTIES!!!

I didn’t hate the film but I didn’t like it either and therefore I give an average score of…

6.5/10 

THOR REVIEW

This review is way late to do give in now but its taken some time to gather my thoughts on this film and what I in my honest opinion felt when watching it.

Kenneth Branagh who some will remember from such films like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has taken up the Director’s chair for what is the Avengers’ next superhero prequel and feature’s Marvel’s God of Thunder this time around.

The film starts with setting up the universe of Thor, which follows more of a magical fantasy tone than its predecessors Iron Man and Hulk. What follows is the relationships that are set up between Odin (Anthony Hopkins) King of the realm of Asgard and father to the reckless and somewhat proud spoiled child Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and more disciplined but manipulated God of Mischief, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), two brothers who are next in line for the throne of Asgard.

When Thor’s celebration to King-hood is interrupted by the arrival of the realms enemies the Frost Giants, Thor and Loki along with their friends the Warrior’s Three aka Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), Hogun (Tadanobu Asano) and Fandral (Joshua Dallas) along with the Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander) travel to the Frost Giant world of Jotunheim to pay Frost Giant King Laufey (Colm Feore) a visit so as to discover how and why the Giant’s have broken the long truce between their worlds.

Thor seeking vengeance and thrills of battle engages the Frost Giants in combat only to be saved at the last second by his father Odin who then proceeds to punish Thor for his aggressive behaviour and arrogance and sends him to earth to learn from his mistakes.

It is from here on in that the film loses its magic. What followed in the half hour was a uniqueness on a character and that character’s world that has been done justice, however, while the beginning of the film sets this epic tone to it there is nothing truly epic going on. The majority of scenes in Asgard are always with the same characters and in the same locations. The film never moves to explore the ways of lives in Asgard or how its various characters occupy that world and thus it feels as if there is a lot missing.

The effects are nice and wonderfully done to perfection with a clear straight direction thanks to Branagh but he fails to do anything more with it. Here a new world has been shown and Branagh ceases to do more with it. When the plot moves to the Ice world of Jotunheim, Thor and his friends only walk a few minutes to meet with King Laufey and no time is given to explore more of this world.

And once the films plot cuts to Earth the sets here of the small town feel like a low budget western. Its as if the budget has all been spend on those same Asgard shots and scenes to allow for anything more to be shown or done with and the plot itself becomes rushed and loses itself in the various amounts of characters, plot twists and interactions been introduced all at once.

Once Thor arrives to Earth we are introduced to three new characters, Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) and love interest Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) who are pretty much the film’s comic relief and nothing whatsoever in terms of advancing the plot except for been someone for Thor to interact with while on Earth and to offer the laughs that while funny and done well again offer nothing in developing the plot or characters.

In fact, the main negative aspects of these Earth scenes is the so-called love relationship between Thor and Jane of which there is none. Thor is on earth in the space of about two days and in those days the film simply asks the audience to accept that Thor and Jane have fallen in love in under that short amount of time and that is the real upsetting establishment to the overall film.

If these characters were removed from the overall movie, the plot would still be somewhat the same. Its disappointing that Lady Sif who later in the comics does become a love interest to Thor wasn’t made the overall love interest to begin with. While a reason is meant to be given for why Thor will later want to return to Earth, creating a forced love story between Chris and Natalie’s characters was not the way to do it.

As negative as these aspects of the Earth scenes sound there are positives too and these are the moments when the film ties in with Iron Man 2s End Credit Scene and sees Agent  Coulson (Clark Gregg) and SHIELD make their presence known. The scenes with Thor infiltrating the SHIELD Base where they have made around the crater site of where Thor’s Hammer the Mighty Mjolnir lays along with his power was along with the Jotunheim beginning scenes my favorite to behold.

Where one was nothing but special effects, this one had real sets and an realistic feel to it.

That and Jeremy Renner cameos as a special someone whose scene is meant to set them up for an appearance in the Avengers along with their own hopefully standalone movie.

It is after these scenes that the forced love story begins along with Loki’s ruling of Asgard and it is sadly quick and over and done with. In fact, no time is ever given to develop those two major plot points in the film and a lot more of time and care should have been put into those plot points because after those the films pacing quickly leads to Thor’s overly quick transformation from a cocky spoiled god man to a exiled mortal who accepts his fate to hero all in the space of two days. 

Add the fact that there is no fear or tension whatsoever because while we're meant to be afraid for Thor to die we know he won't because we know he is set and ready to appear in a future movie with other super heroes so therefore adding elements of  possible death is just pointless. 

In the end there is the battle with the Destroyer who looks like something from the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, which leads to the Final Battle, which altogether feels rushed and anti-climatic and it is those points onward where the film really felt flat to me. The entire last act of the film loses all meaning and sense. It’s not that it doesn’t make sense. It is that no time was given for growth and development of the sub-plots and characters to accept what happens next and that the Final just feels small compared to the epic opening the movie started and presented us with.

While Kenneth Branagh manages to gracefully create a film that paces between different worlds and tones he does not manage to direct something with more feeling and instead focuses more on style. Where the film appears to have too much going on at once there is in fact too little happening and with a film bloated with twists, too many under-developed characters to care about Thor is unfortunaly not executed into the grand fashion that Iron Man managed to achieve and deliver.

But the overall saving grace of the film is the performances of it’s main cast especially those of Anthony, Chris and Tom who are the highlight of the film and offer a unique approach of their characters not seen in comic book films of late.

The father, son and brother relationships between the three was done in such a way that one feels for them and can relate and Anthony Hopkins as Odin has this unseen presence that makes all his scenes stand out and engaging to watch and Tom does a wonderful job as acting out as the emotional and villainess Loki and Chris manages to capture the looks and essence of what it means to be Thor, the God of Thunder.

In conclusion, while Thor manages to be an enjoyable film to watch filled with some amazing set pieces and effects and strong performances with humour thrown in the mix, its under-developed cast of characters and various plots cause it to suffer greatly and lose its pacing at times and thus it fails to make it stand apart from other comic book films of late. But it does succeed in setting up a universe with endless possibilities that will hopefully be more explored in a possible sequel or the Avengers film once it is released next summer.

Score: 7/10

Likes:

• Idris Elba as Heimdall. Wish he had taken more part in action scenes.
• Odin and Loki steal the show.
• Jeremy Renner’s Cameo.
• End Credits Scene.
• Jotunheim Battle Scene. Thor spinning that Hammer was so badass.
• SHIELD infiltration Action Scene. Any sort of action taking place in the middle of a rainy night is awesome.

Hates:

• Love story between Thor and Jane was forced.
• Final Act of film feels rushed and not epic.
• Earth scenes as whole – Should have based it in a more populated location or actual city.