From regions beyond, something unholy and decaying arises.
Long thought dead, it shambles haltingly back into the realm of the living, a twisted mockery of life itself.
No, it’s not a zombie pirate. And it’s not the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise either, you snarky bugger. (Although, fair.)
It’s this blog!
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| Hi! |
My first official post here at Mike Overthinks Movies, as you may – or more likely, may not – remember, was about Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, coinciding with that film’s tenth anniversary. In the years that followed, my infrequent returns to this digital inkwell have mostly been a matter of ticking off the ten-year anniversaries of the Pirates installments that followed, culminating in 2017 with my long-winded and granular analysis of the series’ then-conclusion: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
But then they made another movie! For some reason. So now I have to make another blog post. Because… well, that’s my brain for you.
That’s right, the fourth Pirates film, On Stranger Tides, turns ten years old today. I feel great about that fact. I am not at all terrified by the ravages of time. No siree.
But you know who IS terrified by the ravages of time? Captain Jack Sparrow! Which is precisely why he’s resumed his ongoing quest for immortality, this time seeking it via the mythical Fountain of Youth.
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| Hooray for segues!! |
On Stranger Tides was conceived as a deliberate attempt to take the Pirates franchise in a new direction following the conclusion of the Will Turner/Elizabeth Swann story that made up the first three films. Rather than maintain the intricate, continuity-focused plotting of Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, the retooled series would instead follow in the footsteps of Indiana Jones or Mad Max: the only thing guaranteed to carry over from movie to movie would be Jack Sparrow himself, with anything beyond that being up for grabs. This, to me, always felt like a pretty significant leap to attempt, given that, well… the second and third movies had already been made. The on-ramp to “fun, stand-alone romps” was way back in the end credits of Black Pearl, and by the time of this film’s release, that was already eight years in the rear-view. Still, I can get behind the idea, and my problems with this film lie primarily with the execution.
Speaking of execution…
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| Segues!! |
On Stranger Tides begins in London with the trial of Captain Jack Sparrow, who has been captured and now faces a death sentence at the hands of the King’s justice. Luckily for Jack, he is not actually the defendant in the case against him. That honor goes to his faithful (and falsely identified) first mate, Mr. Joshamee Gibbs. And luckily for Mr. Joshamee Gibbs, the judge presiding over this sham trial is not a real judge, but rather Jack Sparrow himself.
Following a botched escape attempt, Jack finds himself in an audience with King George II, who moves to enlist him on a voyage to follow the trail of Ponce de León’s seemingly failed expedition for the fabled Fountain of Youth. Jack, it seems, doesn’t fancy himself a privateer, so following another, slightly less botched escape attempt, he finds himself in a seafarer’s tavern, where he is informed that Jack Sparrow is in town seeking a crew. Given that HE is Jack Sparrow, and he is NOT seeking a crew, Jack is understandably perplexed by this, until he discovers that the Sparrow doing the recruiting is in fact his old flame Angelica, posing as the Captain for the sake of clout.
You may pause here and notice the already twice-occurring motif of a fake Jack Sparrow. You may wonder: Is this setting up something bigger? A pattern of doppelgangers that will run throughout the movie? Maybe a philosophical question of who the “real” Jack Sparrow is, hiding behind the easily imitated façade of his bravado and drunken swagger?
Nope. It goes nowhere. It’s just a thing that happens twice.
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| Good instincts, though! |
Anyway, Angelica tries to enlist Jack on a voyage to follow the trail of Ponce de León’s seemingly failed expedition for the fabled Fountain of Youth. He starts to refuse, but is struck with a dart that knocks him unconscious, and he awakens several days later below decks of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the infamous ship captained by the legendary Blackbeard, a.k.a. Edward Teach. And what do you know, it turns out Blackbeard – along with Angelica, his daughter – is on a voyage to follow the trail of Ponce de León’s seemingly failed expedition for the fabled Fountain of Youth.
If it feels like I’m hammering this point home, that’s because I think it speaks to one of On Stranger Tides’ primary shortcomings. The film’s writers (Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, returning once again from the first three installments) desperately want to send Jack to the Fountain of Youth. Jack is surrounded on all sides by characters who are actively seeking the Fountain of Youth. Jack himself has every reason to want to find the Fountain of Youth, since he’s still trying to achieve immortality after making the difficult choice to give it up back in At World’s End. But rather than lean into this obvious angle, we meet Jack having already abandoned the quest, and by the film’s halfway point, when he learns that the Fountain’s gift requires sacrificing the life of another, he’s renounced it entirely. Instead, the plot is engineered in a way that literally forces Jack to go after the Fountain largely against his will.
Besides being unsatisfying, this creates a real problem. With Will and Elizabeth gone, Jack is finally, unambiguously positioned as the franchise’s main character. But in this, his first solo outing, Jack might just be the least motivated we’ve ever seen him. Despite being the protagonist, he continues to be written like a supporting character: contributing to the action while never truly pursuing a goal of his own.
Now, sure, across the film’s first two acts, Jack DOES a lot of things. He attempts a mutiny aboard the Revenge… but only after Blackbeard shanghaies him. He blows up the lighthouse at Whitecap Bay… but only after Blackbeard starts a mermaid feeding frenzy. He jumps off a waterfall and retrieves Ponce de León’s chalices from the Spanish camp… but only after Blackbeard threatens Angelica’s life if he doesn't. This is, quite frankly, not the Jack Sparrow I recognize from the first three films. The Jack Sparrow of the original trilogy wanted very many things very badly, and was always, always, working to get them, even when nobody else noticed. Not so in On Stranger Tides. Time and again, the character who takes decisive action to drive the plot forward – the character who, by rights, earns the title of protagonist here – is Blackbeard. That’s an interesting choice, and one that could have worked if Blackbeard was more nuanced. But alas, there’s very little depth to him at all. He’s scared of death, just like Jack is, and is willing to kill, brutalize, and torture in order to escape it, just like Jack isn’t. He’s going after the Fountain because that’s what he’s decided he wants, and his motives never change or falter. The only person who's truly in a position to oppose him is Jack... but Jack also wants the Fountain – or at least wouldn’t say no to it – and as such, the path of least resistance is for him to go along for the ride. The result is a movie where things keep happening, but nobody ever makes any choices.
And actually, before we get too far away from it, I want to say something about that waterfall.
The Fountain of Youth is supposed to be in Florida, right?
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| Meaning this is... Florida? |
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| Mr. Gibbs Says: The highest naturally occurrin' point in Florida is Britton Hill, with a relative elevation o' 65 feet. There's a public park there now. It's lovely. |
Oh, right. Mr. Gibbs’ whole thing in this one is that he memorized Sao Feng’s secret map. That’s convenient. Thanks, Mr. Gibbs!
In all fairness, I won’t try to argue against the notion that Jack is at his best in a reactive role. The beauty of Captain Jack Sparrow is that he’s not a planner. In any given moment, he can and will figure out what he needs to do to get him out of his current predicament, and execute those actions flawlessly. He just… doesn’t often think about any of the moments beyond that. That back-and-forth rhythm of “out of the frying pan, into the fire, out of that fire, into a bigger fire, back into the frying pan” is exactly what makes him so entertaining to watch. Elliot and Rossio obviously understand this – they created him, after all – and perhaps they were scared of pushing him too far away from that dynamic, which I can sympathize with. The problem On Stranger Tides faces is that I don’t think the pair made the right adjustments for where Jack sits in this particular story, nor do I think it would have been too hard to do so.
One of the most beloved reactive characters in all of film – someone else who famously makes things up as he goes along, and who somewhat controversially fails to impact the overall plot of his flagship film – has already been mentioned earlier in this post: I’m talking, of course, about Indiana Jones.
In recent years, it has been observed by some… zealous Internet commenters (I would be harsher, but, well… look at the name of this blog) that the primary events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, complete with the villains’ untimely demises, would still end up occurring even if Indy had never tossed his iconic hat into the ring. Whether or not you agree with this assessment, the fact remains that Indy does spend a lot of the movie playing catch-up, in a race for the Ark against enemies whose progress toward their goal is largely independent from his own. This setup really isn’t all that different from On Stranger Tides, when you think about it: Blackbeard is more than capable of finding the Fountain without Jack’s help – seriously, why was Angelica so insistent on bringing him? – and Jack’s primary concern is figuring out what to do once they finally get there.
What’s different about Raiders is that, despite the parallel plots, Indy is always fundamentally driven. Just as the Nazis could still find the Ark without Indy and Marion, Indy and Marion could potentially find the Ark without the Nazis, and they’re working to do just that. Even after the Ark is lost, Indy keeps pressing on, motivated by a desire to keep Marion safe. On Stranger Tides tries to set up a similar relationship between Jack and Angelica, in which he feels obligated to protect his former love from the side of Blackbeard that she's blind to, but I don't think they sell that idea hard enough. Actually watching the film, it’s hard not to feel that, if it weren’t for Blackbeard, Jack would still be in London getting drunk with his dad.
Mr. Gibbs Says: London covers a total area o’ 1,579 square kilometers. The tidal rise o’ the Thames River, which runs through it, is 7 meters.
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| Oh, Mr. Gibbs. Is this really what you've been reduced to? Map facts? |
The Pirates franchise has always been full to bursting with characters who make promises they have no intention of keeping, and I know for a fact that Elliot and Rossio know how to write those sorts of gambits and double-bluffs. The plot even gives us a built-in bit of rock-paper-scissors logic: Jack needs Blackbeard’s ship, Angelica needs Jack’s knowledge of the map (I think), and Blackbeard needs Angelica’s daughterly affection. If the entire movie had been an extended exercise in those three subtly using one another for their own gain, competing to see who had the best poker face, things could have been much more interesting, and more propulsive to boot. In the film as it stands, Angelica is the only character who isn’t completely up-front with their intentions from the jump, which drains almost all the tension from the situation. Perhaps there’s something to be said for the simplicity that change brings, but I’ll say it again: it doesn’t sound anything like the series I know and love.
When I first saw On Stranger Tides a decade ago, my gut reaction was to call it a solid second-place finisher among its brethren -- below the original, of course. The two-part epic that came between them was just too overwhelming and confusing for my younger self. I’ve since come around on those other two movies (at least comparatively speaking), and looking back on this film now, ten years older and… let’s say four years wiser, I could hardly disagree with my gut more. I’m still not entirely convinced that this is a bad movie, but what I do know is that it represents a serious missed opportunity. Here more than ever, Jack is placed front and center within the narrative, and nothing at all is done with him. I’m not even sure he grows or changes at any point. The vague dichotomy set up between Jack and Blackbeard, in which both want to live forever but only one will harm others to achieve it, isn’t interrogated at all, especially since this isn’t a stance that Jack adopts after witnessing Blackbeard’s cruelty. He’s already arrived at it thanks to the previous film. In fact, the very first thing we see Jack do in this outing is risk his neck to help a friend in need, an act that would have been nearly unthinkable for the Jack of Dead Man’s Chest. While I guess that does represent growth for the character overall, this film, specifically, fails to push it any further, and that’s a disappointment, to say the least.
Ah well.
At least it still gave us a pretty lady to look at.
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| What? I HAD to include a picture of the pretty lady! It's tradition! |
That’s all for now. See you all in.... *sigh* … six years.
