The Buccaneer is Back

Jack Sparrow is back with a new group of frenemies in a film with modest ambitions.

 

Sequels of popular films often suffer from an over compensation complex. In an effort to up the ante, its creators often bite off portions far too big for their muscles of mastication. The second film in Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean series is a study in this phenomenon. Mounted on a sprawling canvas it was beset by constructs that bordered on the ridiculous and character after superfluous character. With the aid of Johnny Depp, the ever-reliable Geoffrey Rush, an often under-appreciated Bill Nighy and a reigned in script, Verbinski managed to draw the series to a conclusion in At World’s End. Or so we thought until the last few minutes the previous installment of the theme park attraction turned film franchise. 

From the denouement dregs of At World’s End comes the latest addition to the series, Rob Marshall’s On Stranger Tides. Jack Sparrow, again without a ship or a crew, is now in London attempting to regain both. (Judi Dench even does a cameo. After all, how is one to believe that this is London if the dame does not make an appearance?). It turns out that Sparrow’s predicament is symptomatic – the film too spends a significant portion of its time on land and in search of water. When Jack is finally aboard a ship and headed in search of Ponce de Leon’s legendary Fountain of Youth, he just a lowly deckhand. The privilege of captaining the brig he is aboard, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, belongs to Edward Teach, more famously known on the high seas as Blackbeard (Ian McShane invoking his typical growl). Accompanying Blackbeard as first mate is Angelica, played by the unquestionably alluring Penelope Cruz. As anticipated, Angelica and Jack have a past and the film would like us to entertain hopes that they have a future.

Also on the quest for the Fountain are the English and Spanish kings, each vying with the other to gain access first. The English King’s sailors are led by a strangely bedecked, one-legged Barbossa played by Geoffrey Rush who seems criminally unchallenged by the role at this point. In this manner the film sets up a simple three-way conflict that seems scaled down in scope from the Verbinski versions. As the film progresses, almost as if aware of the reduction in canvas, a ponderous romance between a young man of faith and a mermaid is thrown into the mix. While the intention of this sub-plot may have been to meditate on fantasy and faith, it comes off as a purely reactionary measure when juxtaposed with the superficial antics of Sparrow and the rest of the cast. There is no dearth of manufactured situations in On Stranger Tides and they are all in service of Sparrow’s uncanny sense of balance. For someone obsessed with immortality until the previous film, Jack uncharacteristically develops a conscience when it comes to the Fountain of Youth. The narcissism, however, is still present: Jack and Angelica kiss is only when she is impersonating him. And after four films in service of such self-obsession, it may be time to call it day.

P.S: An edited version appears in the City Express supplement of today's New Indian Express. Link here.