Pirates of the Caribbean: What Went Wrong With The Sequels – Screen Rant

The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was an instant action-adventure classic upon release, so where did the disappointing sequels go wrong?

The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was an instant action-adventure classic upon release, so what went wrong with the film's many disappointing sequels? Directed by The Ring's Gore Verbinski and based on a theme park ride,Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl did not look like much when it arrived in cinemas way back in 2003. But the film was a surprise success and managed the rare feat of winning over both critics and audiences with its quick wit, swashbuckling action sequences, and game cast.

The movie had a secret weapon in the form of a career-defining central turn from Johnny Depp as the feckless antihero Captain Jack Sparrow, aroleDisney studio originally hated.But there wasn't a weak link in the large cast, the romantic subplot was more moving than perfunctory, the scary scenes packed a real punch, and the plot was agreeably twisty and unpredictable for a summer blockbuster. So what went wrong with the film's string of increasingly weak sequels?

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The series has seen a significant decline in its critical approval, with the solid 79% Rotten Tomatoes score of the first movie dropping to 53% for the first sequel, and only continuing to get lower ever since. That has eventually made its way to the box office too: although two of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequelsgrossed over$1 billion worldwide, the most recent installment, 2017's Dead Men Tell No Tales, was the franchise's lowest performer since the first.There's a general sense of fatigue with the series, but there are numerous more specific problems with the sequels.

Part of what madethe first film such a delightful surprise upon its release was the surprisingly high stakes of its story and the genuinely threatening villains. From the opening scene onwards The Curse of the Black Pearl is filled with legitimately scary scenes, andaudiences unfamiliar with Jack Sparrow spent most of their first viewing certain he wouldn't survive until the credits. Some still argue that killing off Jack Sparrowis the only way to reestablish meaningful stakes in the series, as from his first appearance in Dead Man's Chestit was clear that Jack was an indestructible cartoon character whocould be tossed down a ravine without the incident leaving a scratch on him. This change resulted in a sequel where the stakeswerenon-existent, lightening the movie's tone way too much. Even the first film's dark and foreboding night-time cave settingswere replaced by sun-bleached desert islands straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon.

The vast majority of the movie's actionwasa string of convoluted double-crossing which, because the characters no longer seem close to death, neverfelt impactful or dramatic.Where the firstPirates of the Caribbean moviehad one un-killable mascot, Jack the Monkey, the sequelmakes the entire cast indestructible and limits any emotional connection for the audience as there's now nothing for viewers to fear. Sure,Jack may end up (temporarily) killed off at the close of this sequel's glacially paced 151 minutes, but the death never feels real despite the plodding build-up to his involuntary sacrifice. The sequel's lighter toneis exacerbated bythe film's main villains as, unlike the zombie pirates of the first installment, Davy Jones' part-barnacle henchmen are more gross than threatening. The film does have a more threatening, bigger picture villain, but that's another problem...

Despite bringing back Barbossa and Jack,the franchise's third installment Pirates of the Caribbean:At World's End makes it clear from the opening scene onwards that it won't be repeating the mistakes of Dead Man's Chestby lightening the tone too much. Nope, this film opens with a mass pirate hanging, one of whose victims is a child. So it goes without saying that the third film overcorrected, making the tone of the series way too gloomy for a summer blockbuster. This is all due to the big picture villains of the series, The East India Trading Company. They're responsible for the aforementioned uber-bleak hanging sequence, and a huge chunk of the film's runtime is devoted to explaining their cozy relationship with governments of the time. Although plenty of maritime myths show up in Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the series utilized a set of heartless bureaucrats hell-bent on regulating the high seas astheir overarching villain.

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The real-life institution's impending destruction of the pirate world marks the arrival of modernity in this old world setting and, though the series always hinted that it wouldcome to a close with the end of the piracy era (later tacked-on sequels notwithstanding), multiple lengthy scenes of characters discussing the particulars of maritime law do notan excitingPirates sequel make. Between the gloomy, grey-dominated visual palette of this third installment,numerous surprisingly bleak characters deaths, and an unexpectedly poignant ending which left none of the characters happy, this third film dipped into territory which was simply too sad and self-serious for a series originally adapted from a theme park ride.So it's no wonder Will and Elizabeth didn't return forPirates 4 aftertheir shared storyline came to a brutal close in this film'sgrimfinal scenes.Fans were confounded by acomplicated plotthat dragged the film out to a whopping 168-minute runtime, as well as Will and Elizabethbeing left apart at their story's unexpectedly tragic end.

The East India Trading Company's attempts to play various parties off one another resulted in a string of double and triple crossesthat were less clever and more needlessly complex. Even outside of their involvement, the plot already hadthree conflicting villains to deal with by the first sequel alone, with the disgraced Norrington, the undead Barbossa, and theoctopus-faced monster Davy Jones all vying for screen time. The second sequel brought in a set of Pirate Lords (including Keith Richards as Jack Sparrow Senior, bizarrely), and inevitably added more cooks to this by-now thoroughly spoiled broth. Even if the East India Trading Company's contributions to the narrative were disregarded entirely, nine Pirate Lords, two love stories, two antagonists, and an undead army are too much for one story

Of course, the unspoken reality is that none of the convoluted plots or wavering tones would have mattered if the films were still fun, and the reason many fans soured to the series has little to do with its inconsistency and complexity. By the time the fourth (and worst) Pirates of the Caribbeanmovie, On Stranger Tides, was released the franchise had dropped much of its old cast and carried over only the reliable audience favorite Captain Jack Sparrow, alongside a couple of supporting plays such as Barbossa and Joshamee Gibbs. The problem was, by this stage Depp's version of the character was more than a little tired and audiences were sick of what had once been a fresh new antihero.

The character had been ripped off countless times (sometimes by his actor in other roles), and the sight of a campy, too-clever scallywag getting his way out of scrapes by sleight of hand had well and truly lost its charm by the time the franchise's critically abhorred fifth installment arrived in cinemas in 2017. Only time will tell whether Disneycanwin back the crowd by recasting the role, as Depp's incarnation of the character remains iconic even if he did outstay his welcome at the cineplex. Only time will tell whetherthe upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean rebootmight be able to revive the ailing franchise, but it will be an uphill battle after four films of inconsistent tones and overlong, over-egged plottingled the publicto fall out of love with this franchise.

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Pirates of the Caribbean: What Went Wrong With The Sequels - Screen Rant