POTC: ON STRANGER TIDES

Johnny Depp was never meant to be the star/center of the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise. Orlando Bloom was the star of the first film, not Depp. Bloom was midway through the LORD OF THE RINGS series and had a shitload of clout around him. While Depp, who I truly believe to be a great actor, was coming off the double box office disappointment of FROM HELL and BLOW. You’ll note that the original marketing materials for the first PIRATES movie actually pushed the premise, Bloom and Keira Knightley more than Depp.

The reason for this is that Jack Sparrow was always meant to be a supporting cast member, not the lead. Jack has been, and always will be, Han Solo. Cool as Solo is, you really don’t want to see him as the lead. Solo as the lead would lessen the character and force him to be more of the traditional hero rather than the roguish space pirate that he is. And therein lies the problem of ON STRANGER TIDES: Jack Sparrow has been regulated, by default, to the hero role. He’d already been shoved to the forefront of the previous two PIRATES sequels because of his popularity, but he’s never been saddled with being the actual hero…until now.

I guess this was to be expected because Will Turner (Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann’s (Knightley) character arcs were wrapped up with a neat little bow at the end of AT WORLD’S END (You did stick around after the credits, didn‘t you?). The intention for ON STRANGER TIDES was always going to be that it was a standalone pic and that meant there was never any time to introduce replacement characters for these two. What the filmmakers and studio didn’t realize was that this series needs characters like this in order to give the audience someone to associate with and to give the film itself an anchor to maintain to maintain balance. Sparrow is too flaky a character for the film to rest on and the audience was never meant to identify with him. Laugh with him? Yes. Identify? No.

And while TIDES does try to throw a star-crossed couple at you in the form of young reverend Phillip (Sam Claflin) and captured mermaid Syrena (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), their entire relationship is so rushed and forced that it never really sticks. Plus, they just don’t compare to Will and Elizabeth. Those two had such a solid chemistry and strong bond that their elimination from the series damn near kills it.

Why? Because Jack was never meant to be the lead. He’s too buffoonish and spacey. Director Rob Marshall and writers Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot try their damndest to fashion him into the hero but they fail miserably. I guess the main reason is because audiences have seen Sparrow three times already and each time they’ve seen him he has progressively become more sneaky and outlandish. The natural next step would be to make Jack either the bad guy or have him fully embrace his inner Peter Lorre, not to turn him into the lead. To suddenly throw Sparrow into the position of being the guy the audience has to relate to is a misstep that TIDES never quite recovers from.

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