"It's a pirate's life for me, savvy?" - Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides

Before I get into the meat of the movie I should state outright that I love Johnny Depp and any evaluation of his performance will be skewed by my opinion of him. That said, his performance is definitely deserve of praise. He has taken a much-loved franchise character and given him new life by adding depth to the character. Depp made a conscious effort to do this, as evidenced by his involvement in the film beginning at the pre-production stages. It's wonderful to see an actor who takes enough pride in their work to make sure that their franchise did not continue in the unfortunate downhill spiral of the second and third.

Since I could write about the merits of Depp's portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow almost endlessly, I'll move on to other topics before I lose the few of you who got bored enough to read this. If you don't know the basic plot of this fourth film here's my synopsis:

• Jack "there should be a Captain in there somewhere" Sparrow is off to search for the fountain of youth under demand of Blackbeard (Ian McShane). Jack's captor/ex-girlfriend/impersonator/"damsel"/etc. Angelica (Penelope Cruz) re-enters his life in a highly entertaining sword fight reminiscent of the first Pirates movie and continues to make the character rapidly evolve in a very entertaining way. It should surprise no one that the band of pirates [as well as others who seek the fountain, including Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) who is, in an interesting twist, working for the crown] reach their destination through a series of trials that ends in a climactic fight on a wonderful set. 

 The cast is magnificent, having dropped Kiera Knightley and Orlando Bloom after their characters' stories were wrapped in At Worlds End. The addition of Penelope Cruz gives us a believably strong female lead who plays well off of Depp and gives as good as she gets. Ian McShane is deliciously evil; for those of you who enjoyed the HBO series Deadwood, you'll love McShane's turn as Blackbeard. He's relentlessly evil, unlike the villains from the first two films who had other emotional levels, and he's believably ruthless. Personally, I was most excited about seeing Ian McShane in this film and I was not disappointed; I wanted a simple EVIL villain and  was delivered as much.

Two other notable mentions are effectively the replacements for Bloom and Knightley. Sam Claflin enters the film in a. . . non-traditional means and continues on to not only stay uncorrupted by piracy, but have a beautifully sweet relationship with a mermaid (typically ferocious creatures if you didn't know) named Syrena (played by the beautiful Astrid Berges-Frisbey). The mermaids in this film are fantastic as well; they incorporate different myths like the original Celtic selkie myths and the siren myths, as well as novel illustration of their appearance, to give the audience a fresh look at what mermaids could be. This is not Ariel, ladies and gents, and mix the two up at your own peril.

I've probably missed a bunch of stuff that I wanted to say, but this is my first one of these so give me a break. The choreographers brought their A-game to the fight scenes, the comedy is as quick and dry as ever, and there are some great cameos, including the brief return of Jack's dad. I was highly entertained and when we get down to brass tacks that's what film is about. It's not being ground-breaking (though that an still be entertaining, i.e. District 9 and Avatar), but about making you feel like the ticket price was at least mostly worth it. The 3D adds great depth to the movie, even the non-CGI parts, so if you can shell out the extra ash for those awesome glasses and really immerse yourself in the pirates experience. But keep the glasses after; then you can have a sweet 3D glasses collection like me.

4 stars out of 5