Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

I didn't expect much from this one, but you know what? The Pirates movies are pretty damn fun. I've always held that the franchise was "overrated," though perhaps that stems from what felt like my entire high school class going into full-blown pirate mode after the first one came out in 2003 and misusing the word "savvy." But you know what? I did like that first Pirates movie, if I'm being honest with myself. And I liked the two sequels, too, in all their twisted and convoluted melodrama. But by the time this fourth movie came out in 2011, I just wasn't interested enough to see it. I'm pretty sure my wife (then-girlfriend) and a couple of my friends all saw it together, and unless I'm remembering things wrong, I just straight up didn't want to go. The idea of Disney and Johnny Depp making a fourth movie  even though both Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom were done, done, done with the series felt wrong to me, for some reason.

Turns out, On Stranger Tides doesn't want for Knightley and Bloom at all; if anything, it's traded up for Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane. Besides, the Bloom and Knightley love story kind of concluded anyway when they made a half-zombie baby and she came back for him ten years later to relieve him of his curse, or something. This was a leaner, newer, and more exciting movie than either the second or the third one. It came in at just over two hours where the previous two were bloated up enough to approach three hours in length. I guess at the end of the day, if Disney wants to keep churning these out every four years or so, I'm willing to give them a chance. Eventually, I mean; I'm still not regretting not seeing this one in theaters.