geoffrey rush is awesome.

I will admit, I first saw Geoffrey Rush as an actor when I first saw 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl'. I had heard of him prior to that movie, but had never really seen him in action before. After the movie was done, I was immensely sad...because, you know, his character dies. SORRY, alright, if you haven't seen the FIRST PotC movie by now, then you've essentially been living under a rock and probably aren't reading my blog in the first place.

ANYway. I pretty much became a huge fan of his after that movie, and also a huge fan of his character Barbossa. He stole pretty much any scene he was in, and continued to do so for the rest of the trilogy as well (but wait, Shoaib! You just said his character dies! Well, tough luck, you should watch the rest of the movies). On Stranger Tides just came out, and yes, Geoffrey Rush is back. Honestly, he is a supremely talented actor, and had Christian Bale not been even MORE awesome in 'The Fighter' this past year, then he would have easily won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in 'The King's Speech'. He once again steals every scene he's in, and has an absolutely awesome end scene (as in, the last scene that you, the audience, see him in in this movie).

As for the movie itself, however, it fails to do much beyond showcase how awesome Barbossa is. Johnny Depp is still wacky ol' Captain Jack, and the audience I was with never failed to laugh at everything he did, regardless of if it were funny or not...and frequently, most of the stuff Depp does as Jack is merely chuckle worthy. Still, he was entertaining, but I think this movie suffers from a fate that many movies suffer these days....giving away a lot of the 'big' moments in the trailer. From that trailer, I could already deduce (quite easily, since all the following things they just say outright) that the movie was about the chase for the Fountain of Youth, and that Blackbeard was on its trail. Hell, I could have deduced that from the end of PotC 3 (what a travesty that movie was...it was so bad), I didn't need a trailer to tell me that.

Blackbeard was less menacing than I thought, sadly. Ian McShane looked every bit the part that I would imagine Blackbeard to look like, and he even sounded like what I would imagine Blackbeard sounds like. Unfortunately, beyond that, there was nothing. There was some stuff with mystical powers and voodoo, but...it just all came across as nothing more than a cheap intimidation trick. No one really took him seriously, and even Blackbeard's threats to kill people came across as hollow. Even the ending, which I won't spoil, seemed like a desperate act of an old man, rather than coming across as ruthless and despicable. Penelope Cruz, as Jack's love interest, was rather attractive, but...just seemed like so much window dressing.

Finally, the love story. I am not afraid to say that Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley were my least favourite things about the last three movies. It worked for the first film, fine. That movie could have come to its conclusion, and I would have been happy to never see the characters of Elizabeth and Will ever again...but, no, it was shoe-horned into the next two movies. Well, at the end of PotC 3, their story was done! Obviously the creators felt the need to shoe-horn in another love story, because the budding romance between the missionary (whose title seemed to be there only so Jack could make a joke about the 'missionary position') and the mermaid. Trust me, the romance felt nothing BUT tacked on at the last minute, and was pretty much completely useless. Of course, the filmmakers found a way to make it somewhat important, but it really just felt totally contrived and uninteresting.

In the end, Barbossa has a really cool scene, Jack gets what he wants, and the movie is open-ended enough for a fifth movie. Considering it's made a total of over 250+ million dollars internationally (making it the biggest international debut for a movie EVER), and just over 90mill domestically (meaning in North America), I think it's safe to say that Captain Jack will be back for another adventure on the high seas. You know what? I'll be going to see that one, too, along with millions of other people. I'd give this movie a 6.5 or 7 out of 10; nothing horrible, but nothing too special. A fun summer popcorn flick for people to take in, laugh, watch some stuff blow up, and have some general fun. I'd recommend it for Barbossa alone, but there's plenty of other moments that's enough to make you laugh. Oh, and there's an after-the-credits scene. It's nothing special, just enough for a chuckle or two. Still, if you're willing to stick around for the end of the absurdly long credits, then be my guest...I know I did =P