There's a moment in the film Misery when James Caan, hobbled by obsessive fan Kathy Bates, produces a literary sequel under excruciating duress. Unhappily for the author, the manuscript fails to impress the stalker who, enraged by his jobsworth efforts, relates an incident from childhood when a cheat cliff-hanger ending in Rocketman caused her to stand up in a cinema and shout at the screen: “He didn’t get out of the cock-a-doodle car!”
Veterans of the Pirates sequence know better than to quibble or crow. The multi-billion-dollar franchise didn’t get rich by playing by the rules. Geoffrey Rush dies; he comes back; one minute he hates Captain Jack, the next they’re off on the lash together; ships sink only to pop back up again; all bets are generally off.
While watching this latest instalment we repeatedly tried and failed to establish the parameters of new player Blackbeard’s powers. To dwell on such things is to ask “how come?” As in, if Blackbeard has all these mad skills and the mighty Ian McShane is on the role then how come he doesn’t do anything about that rabid mermaid? As in, how come they thought they could make one of these things without Keira Knightley?
The fourth Pirates film is leaner and more focused than its immediate predecessors. At 137 minutes it’s the shortest of the series. There are fewer tedious pillow shots of pretend boats on digital seas, mores scenes with Depp and compositions by Rodrigo y Gabriela.
But there is nothing to compensate for the loss of Keira. In her own domain, Penélope Cruz is a fine, nuanced thespian who appears in Almódovar flicks and lives with Javier Bardem. In the Anglophone world she pops up in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, regularly fails to convince us to buy mascara and is the same chick that used to date Tom Cruise.
Cruz’s turn here, as Blackbeard’s daughter and Jack Sparrow’s former squeeze, is a poor substitute for her feisty British predecessor. Hampered by foreign vowels and alien consonants, Cruz mostly sounds like she’s repeating from a library cassette. Her eyes are saying, “Arrr!” Her flattened tone asks: “Is this the way to the National Museum?” Elsewhere, baffling as it sounds, Sam Claflin’s shanghaied missionary lacks the gravitas and charisma of Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner. Shoehorned between lulls and mayhem, the romantic subplot between Mr Clafin and a pouting mermaid (model Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) makes for a particularly risible detour in a film already straining with nonsense.
Still, unlike the narrative quagmire between parts two and three, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides at least has a readily discernible purpose. The plot, supposedly adapted from a novel by Tim Powers, sees Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) escape the gallows and team up with old flame Angelica (Cruz) to find the Fountain of Youth.
The unlikely pirate queen hopes to save her father Blackbeard from “the prophecy” but a rival Spanish fleet may have the jump on them. Meanwhile, Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa, now on the payroll of King George II, is sailing close behind.
Rob Marshall, a director inclined towards the tight theatrical framing of Chicago and 9, proves a suitable replacement for Gore Verbinski. On Stranger Tides doesn’t milk its CGI vistas and infernal contraptions to the same degree as its 2007 precursor, nor does it feel overly cluttered with British comedians.
It hardly matters that it’s a lacklustre improvement on the formula. We, the people, have decided we love Depp in a bandana. We love Keith Richards as his dad. And we don’t mind sitting through hours of any old rubbish to get our fix.
Welcome back Pirates of the Caribbean. Bottle of rum says you out-gross everything except Harry Potter in 2011.
