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, a role Disney 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?
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 sequels grossed 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.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Was Too Light (And Too Long)
Part of what made the 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, and audiences 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 Sparrow is the only way to reestablish meaningful stakes in the series, as from his first appearance in Dead Man's Chest it was clear that Jack was an indestructible cartoon character who could be tossed down a ravine without the incident leaving a scratch on him. This change resulted in a sequel where the stakes were non-existent, lightening the movie's tone way too much. Even the first film's dark and foreboding night-time cave settings were replaced by sun-bleached desert islands straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon.
The vast majority of the movie's action was a string of convoluted double-crossing which, because the characters no longer seem close to death, never felt impactful or dramatic. Where the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie had one un-killable mascot, Jack the Monkey, the sequel makes 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 tone is exacerbated by the 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...
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Is Too Dark (And Way Too Long)
Despite 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 as their overarching villain.
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 would come 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 not an exciting Pirates 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 for Pirates 4 after their shared storyline came to a brutal close in this film's grim final scenes. Fans were confounded by a complicated plot that dragged the film out to a whopping 168-minute runtime, as well as Will and Elizabeth being left apart at their story's unexpectedly tragic end.
The Pirates of the Caribbean Sequels' Storylines Grew Too Convoluted
The East India Trading Company's attempts to play various parties off one another resulted in a string of double and triple crosses that were less clever and more needlessly complex. Even outside of their involvement, the plot already had three conflicting villains to deal with by the first sequel alone, with the disgraced Norrington, the undead Barbossa, and the octopus-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
Audiences Grew Tired Of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow
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 Caribbean movie, 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 ing 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 Disney can win 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 whether the Pirates of the Caribbean reboot might be able to revive the ailing franchise, but it will be an uphill battle after four films of inconsistent tones and overlong, over-egged plotting led the public to fall out of love with this franchise.
