BEFORE: Perhaps you guessed this film would pop up this week. But unlike the pirates, when I set out on this quest over three years ago, I had no map. I let the tides of organizational logic and the occasional wind of whimsy take me where they may. After all, if there's a pattern to when movies premiere on premium cable, it's beyond my comprehension. So when I got tired of waiting for this one, I went ahead and scheduled a pirate-themed chain, and ordered the DVD from Amazon. It arrived just a few days before the film premiered on the Starz channel. My timing was solid, but my patience may need some improvement.
I'm now planning my schedule for April, and it starts with superhero films again - so it's really lucky that "Green Lantern" will premiere on cable this weekend (for St. Patrick's day, nice) but where is the film "Kick-Ass"? For that matter, where is "The Fighter", "Precious" and "Hot Tub Time Machine"? How's a guy supposed to plan his movie-watching this way?
Anyway, about the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise - I enjoyed the first film, thought the second one was a bit odd, and the third was a complicated mess. But then they got a new director, so we'll see how that works. Linking from "Treasure Island", Jack Palance was also in "Young Guns" with Charlie Sheen, who was in "Platoon" with Johnny Depp.
THE PLOT: Jack Sparrow and Barbossa embark on a quest to find the elusive fountain of youth, only to discover that Blackbeard and his daughter are after it too.
AFTER: The complexity of "At World's End" is gone, so they did an OK job of simplifying things - no tokens, lost swords, map pieces, five golden rings or what have you. Everyone here has ONE goal, to find the fountain of youth. But, just because a thing is rumored to exist doesn't mean that it actually does. But, this is a Disney film with a hefty amount of fantasy, so the outlook is probably good.
That said, the process of activating the fountain turns out to be incredibly complicated - which doesn't make much sense to me. Wouldn't a magical fountain have been around for eons, long before the man-made objects used to make it work would have been invented? Silver chalices, incantations - is it a natural thing, or a magic one, or both?
Structurally, I've got a problem with two factions - let's call them Team Blackbeard and Team Barbossa - vying for the Fountain for the majority of the film, then finding out late in the game that there's a THIRD side. What gives? OK, so they're glimpsed at the start of the film, but then not seen again for an hour and a half. It would be like watching "Return of the Jedi" and finding out that in addition to the Rebellion and the Empire, the Separatists exist, and are attacking Endor.
NITPICK POINT: Without giving anything away, I found the ending to be too similar to one of the Indiana Jones films. Actually, to two of them.
Also starring Penelope Cruz, Geoffrey Rush, Ian McShane, Kevin McNally, Richard Griffiths, with cameos from Keith Richards, Judi Dench.
RATING: 6 out of 10 rowboats
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