Jack Sparrow goes to London to rescue his old friend and crewmate from a hanging.   he gets pulled into a couple of traps.   His old enemy, Captain Barbossa, is working for the British as a privateer and want Jack to lead them to Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth.   Also in the race to get to the Fountain are the Spanish and Blackbeard.   Jack escapes from the British to find out who is recruiting a crew under his name only to bump into Angelica, an old flame he betrayed long ago.   Jack soon finds himself on Blackbeard's ship against his will where Blackbread can control his ship (the Queen Anne's Revenge) like a living thing with his magical sword.   A mermaid's tear and two silver chalices are required to drink from the Fountain of Youth.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES is an entertaining sequel.   Yet it is bloated and runs on for a little too long.   The character development isn't very well written.  The Spanish come off as undeveloped villains while some may not buy the priest falling for the mermaid (maybe the actors don't have enough chemistry or the script could have developed it a little more)  the action sequences are great and so are the locations.    Blackbeard is worse than Barbossa who wants revenge on the man who took his leg and the Black Pearl (which is trapped in a bottle).   He is a little tame where one can't quite buy Angelica's efforts want to help Jack.   Jack has a little change of heart in this film and yet the sequel does feel a little rudderless at times.   It doesn't have the sense of adventure and danger like the first three films.      Sometimes the jokes fall flat and the film doesn't have the expert hand of Gore Verbinski in the director's chair.   ON STRANGER TIDES is like a film made to fill the sequel quota because I wish they did a better job on this one.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The DVD has a blooper reel and Lego animated shorts which retell the story in the film in a  different way and are almost chronological except one short is out of order from the story.   These extras are also on the Blu-ray disc in the 2 disc combo pack and the 5 disc combo pack.

The Blu-ray feature disc  (on both Blu-ray combo packs) also has an audio commentary with Director Rob Marshall and Executive Producer John DeLuca in addition to Disney Second Screen which allows you to access interactive content on the internet via your computer.

The Blu-ray extras disc has special features exclusive to the 5 disc combo pack. 

The three deleted scenes and two extended scenes (with introductions by Director Rob Marshall)  feature on deleted scene and two extended scenes (between Jack and Angelica) I wish were left in the final film.     The rest of the extras on the disc are behind-the-scenes content including four Easter Eggs (which you can find in the menu system):

LEGENDS OF ON STRANGER TIDES-  Behind-the-scenes of filming the newest sequel in Hawaii and at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom

IN SEARCH OF THE FOUNTAIN-   have a look at the various concept art for the look of the fountain inclduing the work they did to create the final look of the fountain on the set and through visual effects.

LAST SAIL, FIRST SHIP-   The last journey of teh Black Pearl ship built for the second and third Pirates films and witness it's transformation into the Queen Anne's Revenge.

UNDER THE SCENE: BRINGING THE MERMAIDS TO LIFE- a look at creating the mermaids

JOHNNY VS. GEOFFREY-   Johnny and Geoffrey talk about their characters and how they would be a great team if the two chaarcters got along.

The four Easter Eggs cover two video diaries from actor Paul Bazely (who plays one of the pirates) and behind-the-scenes look at filming Johnny jumping out of the tower in the studio and the opening sequence of a horse carriage arriving at a Spanish fort.

The fifth disc has the digital copy.

FINAL ANALYSIS:   The fourth PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN film isn't as good as the others and I wonder if they really needed to stretch out the set over five discs (and skimp on extras for the two disc combo pack).   They should have kept the Limited 3D edition to 3 discs (four at max) and provided more extras for the two disc combo (and the DVD).   Don't get me started on their decision to release the standalone DVD a month later.

this review is (c)10-20-2011 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com