Review – Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

I actually liked this a little better than the third one. Having pressed the reset button (except for Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and a few supporting cast members), they can stop trying to dream up ways to keep the old lame plots going and come up with entirely new lame plots. This time around it's a four- or five-way chase to find the Fountain of Youth, and along the way we get the usual parade of sword fights, chases and other miscellaneous pirate nonsense. We also get the King of England, mermaids and Blackbeard. It's that last character that drew me to the theater despite swearing off the series after the last entry. I wanted to see what Ian McShane would do with the role, and his performance turned out to include just enough Al Swearengen to make it entertaining. Otherwise the movie was missable. Mildly amusing