There's no point in even trying to write a pan for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, not after Ali Arikan used his walk-out as an excuse to vent his splenetic fury on the society that would allow it to happen. I sympathize with objections to the piece that cite its lack of hard facts, but then the article openly states it is not a review (and couldn't be, since he walked out) and reads more like an account of the proverbial last straw. Those raising hell over his piece, however, must not have seen the movie, because even if Arikan wanted to discuss the film, I don't see how he could. The fourth installment of this bloated, long-since tired franchise barely qualifies as a movie. In a literal sense, of course, its production value is enormous, worth some $150-250 million depending on the estimate (and that's not even counting the marketing, which has been so overwhelming and seemingly endless I begin to wonder if ads for the movie came with the first pressing of the Gutenberg Bible). Artistically, however, Rob Marshall's insipid, scattershot behemoth is nothing more than a ludicrously expensive cash-in and a woefully safe bet on the presumption that Americans will never ask for anything better.Through its own ineptitude and transparent avarice, On Stranger Tides ultimately condescends so thoroughly to its audience it's all the more troubling and saddening that so many will cheer it. Marshall, one of the least talented directors to be a star director in Hollywood, pieces together such a disjunctive movie it betrays its apathy on the assumption that the people who see it will be too attention-deficit to care about scenes simply starting and stopping without care for flow or continuity. What am I saying? You need a story to be able to adhere to it.
