From worstpreviews the film is shorter—at 128 minutes, it is a full forty-one less than "At World's End"—but the plot is just as much of a hodge-podge, most of the characters are lifeless and one-note, and the action set-pieces verge on the incomprehensible due to poor camerawork, dumpy choreography, and over-caffeinated editing. So inconsequential that it begins to erase from one's memory the second each image passes by, the film is yet another poster-child example for summer movie spectacle gone bad. There is nothing to care about, nothing to think about, nothing to get excited about, and nothing to walk away with. Were it not for having wasted a $200-million budget, the case could be made that it might as well not even exist at all.
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From ew [excerpt], Watching this lead balloon of a tall tale, in which you can see around every corner, I actually began to wish that, say, Russell Brand had been handed the role of Jack Sparrow, or had at least played his even less sane brother. Jack, more than ever, is now front and center, the focal point of every scene, and the result is that he's become less of a jester and more of a colorless expository hero. He ticks off the story for us, point by point, instead of standing to the side lobbing little verbal bombs at it. Depp's delivery is still amusingly sozzled, but the performance has lost any trace of surprise or merry deranged zing. The more Jack says, the less funny he is.
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From usatoday [excerpt], Familiar and predictable, this Pirates reboot is often incoherent and crammed with pointless details. The more sequels spun off, the clearer it becomes that one movie about these swashbucklers would have sufficed.
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From thenewyorktimes, On Stranger Tides” is protected from the consequences of its own mediocrity by the mere fact that it is opening in thousands of theaters on Friday. People will go, and more energy will be expended parsing the box-office returns than discussing the merits of the film, which is likely to be judged entertaining enough and therefore, in the end, not much fun at all.
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