Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Confession time: I have grown mighty tired of Johnny Depp’s pirate act, so I went into this movie with a big strike against it. The teeth, the swaying, the mumbling, the stupid head wrap—I’m pretty much done with this crap. I want to see Depp back in some of those daring projects that made him Depp, and not this cookie-cutter garbage. While I’m at it, I’m tired of Depp and Burton, too. Alice in Wonderland was a joke. In fact, the best moment in On Stranger Tides doesn’t even include Depp. There’s a scary mermaid sequence that scores some points stylistically and has some chills. Most of the time Depp is onscreen, he’s just going back to the well, slurring his dialogue, and thinking he’s far more amusing than he actually is. The villain this time out is Blackbeard (Ian McShane), and he’s as interesting as hardened toothpaste. Rob Marshall directs, and he continues to prove that he’s highly capable of making colossally boring films.