One of the more infuriating and depressing projects to come out of Hollywood in the last decade had been the utter manhandling of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ series after the first film, ‘The Curse of the Black Pearl‘ (2003). After a truly swashbuckling, tightly knit adventure featuring characters likeable (Will and Elizabeth), riveting (Captain Barbosa), and iconic (Captain Jack Sparrow), director Gore Verbinski and his crack team of chimpanzee script writers tapping away at rearranged keyboards decided that it would be best to develop their characters along the least plausible and most annoying lines possible.
The likable characters became gratingly loud versions of themselves, wandering into territories best left to actors who actually bring something to the set beyond what you get from their 8 x 10 glossy. The riveting characters, some of whom were riveting because of the precise dramatic arc of their story in the first movie, had their intrigue shattered by their forceful inclusion in the sequels.
Perhaps one of the greatest characters contributed to cinema in my lifetime, Captain Jack Sparrow, had the aspects of his personality that were already perfect amped way the hell up, turning him into a dirty jester with a sword. Throw in all of the new characters, every single one of whom had less to offer than any of the bastardized originals (and in the case of Calypso, much much less), and you have a compelling argument for the destruction of every copy of ‘Dead Man’s Chest‘ and ‘At World’s End‘. That’s without going into the bloated soap-opera-meets-fantasy-epic story, superfluously complex set pieces, top heavy expansion of scope, and perversion of the entire pirate ethic with the inclusion of a pirate UN.
The delusional attempt to turn ‘Pirates’ into an epic three part narrative (a phrase which, by the way, when followed by the words “Orlando Bloom”, may cause intestinal distress in individuals with a digestive system. Legolas, yours were the sillier parts of LOTR) was not the last saber thrust of the franchise. ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides‘ (2011), directed by Rob Marshall, was made after the sun had finally set on ol’ Will and Elizabeth. Freed from having anything to do with the previous movies, it could re-embrace what made ‘Curse of the Black Pearl’ so fun: the tight, simple (relatively speaking) storytelling that is exciting because it fills its space well. I remember being entertained in a light, unburdened way when I saw it in theaters.
Now we have the fifth swab of the poop deck with ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales‘. Apparently there are ghost sharks (hopefully there are no ghost men, because then they might tell tales, and then the whole movie would be a lie). I’m hope that this and any further Caribbean pirate films (cliche pirate phrases not yet used as titles: ‘Shiver Me Timbers’, ‘Blow Me Down’, ‘Landlubber’. . . although those might work better as titles for sequels to the porno ‘Pirates‘) are written from the same ‘The Sea Hawk‘ (1940) sense of joy and playful adventure that imbued ‘The Curse of the Black Pearl’.
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