Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

     I had patiently awaited the DVD release of the fourth Pirates movie. When it finally I arrived, I forgot about it. Go figure. However, Mom saved the day (and a very boring night) by having it sent to us via Netflix. I was very excited to see the latest installment of one of my favorite movie series, but having seen it, I would warn you not to get your hopes up if you are a Pirates fan.
     The movie starts out as almost all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies have: Jack is in a sticky situation, and he finds some overly creative and far fetched way to get out. This is actually repeated many times in the film, and each time the method of escape becomes harder and harder to believe.
      There is, of course, romance to make up for the disappearance of Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightly's characters, Will and Elizabeth. The love between the missionary and the mermaid is interesting and entertaining, but that between Jack and Angelica was just.... uhg.
      On Stranger Tides provides the same amount of action and daring-do as its predecessors, but there was quite a bit of down time. Sure, it was filled with backstory and dialog, but it wasn't anything you'd really care about missing. In other words, you probably wouldn't even bother to tell someone to pause the movie as you took a bathroom break or replenished your popcorn. Especially considering you wouldn't be missing anything "LOL" worthy. I think my brother and I only laughed during 3 scenes.
      The whole film was ultimately disappointing, especially the endings, which were awkward cliffhangers that left you unsatisfied. The film had three separate endings: one for the missionary and mermaid, one for Jack, and one for Angelica. All three were quite poorly written, especially Angelica's. In At World's End, the ending was well done, in my opinion. Elizabeth and her kid are living happily together on their little island and we see Will sailing towards them. Cool. Good ending. Kill it there before it suffers a long, painful death, unless you're really confident the next movie will be a hit.
      Go ahead and rent it and kill three spare hours, but I wouldn't recommend buying it, unless you've seen it already and thought it was awesome.