This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

A Midnight Cruise With Captain Jack

Heidi McDonald reviews "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides."

For the record, I was not the only person at the midnight premiere of "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" dressed as a pirate. Those of you who know me understand that Captain Jack is serious business with me. I spent all day on my 40th birthday last year riding the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Orlando, FL and creeping on the Captain Jack lookalike. This year, I postponed my birthday 5 days so I could watch the new Pirates.

The good news: Captain Jack is still awesome, but you knew I was going to say that. The cinematography is pretty good, the editing, stellar. Penelope Cruz is SUCH a better female foil for Jack!!! (Keira WHO!?) There are some pretty clever escape scenes, and a really cool scene involving behavior we've never seen before from Disney mermaids. Remind me never to make Ariel angry.

The bad news: The zombies have no reason to be there, other than to be able to show in the trailer that Look! The movie has zombies in it! They woefully underuse both Geoffrey Rush and Ian McShane; in fact, the entire Blackbeard storyline and even his ship are pretty absurd. I'd have written it a lot differently. They get an interesting side story going involving a mermaid and a missionary but don't fully explore or resolve it.

Find out what's happening in Forest Hills-Regent Squarewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

And, dare I say it...there's just too much swordfighting. Like so much swordfighting, it's easy to forget who's fighting who, and it gets exhausting. The film is two hours long but felt like three and a half because of all the darned swordfights.

I don't go to Pirates of the Caribbean movies for the swordfights. I go for the story and the characters. In past pirate movies, Gore Verbinski would let Johnny Depp just improvise these inane speeches for Jack which are some of my favorite moments. This latest has been reduced to a series of canned one-liners, and that's unfair to both Depp and Sparrow. Jack's at his best when he tries to reason his way out of things.

Find out what's happening in Forest Hills-Regent Squarewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

I'd like to see Pirates 5 take some of the swords out in favor of a return to character, story, and more improvised inane Jackspeak. We do get a glimpse just a couple times, but, this movie is not even half as quotable as this series has typically been. There's a speech like that involving a goat -- classic Captain Jack -- which cracked me up pretty badly.

As someone who has read scholarly materials on historical piracy, there's something that really bothered me. Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, died in 1718, captured and killed off the Coast of N. Carolina at the age of 38 by agents of General Spotswood of Virginia. Disney says that this film takes place in 1750 -- 32 years after Blackbeard died, at which point he would have been 70 (nobody lived to 70 in those days, especially not pirates!). 

To explain all that away with "(his death) was just a rumor" is insulting, especially when during the other films they've taken pains to research things. They gave Blackbeard an incorrect flag, though the burning beard, the Russian roulette, and the killing people just for fun to inspire fear...those were accurate.

By setting the year of this film in 1750, they are seriously painting the franchise into a corner. They never chose a year before, but had a range. They should have stuck with that vaguery.

I played "spot Penelope's preggo belly" and caught it 6 times. There is an Easter egg after the credits. I don't think Pirates fans will be as upset as the critics seem to think. I'd describe it as flawed but entertaining, and say that those like me who are only there to see Captain Jack will not be disappointed.

But Mr. Bruckheimer...if you aren't keen on hiring me to help write Pirates 5, at least hire a female director next time. I can't think af any woman who would let Our Wicked Jack take a backseat to a swordfight.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Forest Hills-Regent Square