I've heard it be said that Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was the film people were afraid The Curse of the Black Pearl was going to be. At World's End had a pretty solid ending but left some scope for more stories; Cutler Beckett is dead, Will Turner has taken the place of Davy Jones as captain of The Flying Dutchman, and Barbossa has stolen the Black Pearl (again) with the intention of finding the fabled Fountain of Youth using Sao Feng's navigational charts. Except Jack Sparrow had managed to steal the charts and go off himself.
Anyway, the film opens with Jack in London, attempting to save his first mate Joshamee Gibbs. After getting captured, he's brought before King George II and offered a place in an expedition to find the Fountain of Youth before the Spanish can. Leading the expedition is Captain Barbossa, who has become a privateer in the Royal Navy after losing his leg and the Black Pearl. Jack refuses to serve under Barbossa and escapes, when he learns that someone has been posing as him to assemble a crew. Said impostor is a former love interest named Angelica, played by Penelope Cruz. She kidnaps Jack and reveals herself to be the first mate and long-lost daughter of Blackbeard, the notorious captain of Queen Anne's Revenge, played by Ian McShane. Blackbeard is also seeking the Fountain of Youth, because he fears a prophecy that he'll be slain by a one-legged man.
At this point in the series, I sometimes wonder if they could break up the fantasy quests with something a little more down-to-earth every once in a while. Going after the Fountain of Youth is all well and good, but they have to make it needlessly complicated. The quest involves finding two silver chalices which belonged to Spanish Conquistador Juan Ponce de León, and one of those must contain the tear of a mermaid. Two people must drink water from the Fountain with those chalices, and the person who drank out of the chalice without the tear ends up giving their life to the one who drank from the chalice with the tear. I suppose it illustrates a sense of immorality in immortality. Compare this with the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: You have a temple with several traps serving as trials, and the Grail is hidden amongst many false grails which drain life.
Blackbeard seems too similar to Barbossa and Davy Jones, especially with his magic sword which controls his ship.
Jack Sparrow is still fun to watch, and the action is still entertaining. I think they mainly want to focus on what kind of creative action set pieces they can conceive. Which renders the fantasy elements unnecessary.
All in all, I think you can skip this one. I originally did.
Before I go, I'd like to state that this film borrows quite heavily from On Stranger Tides, a 1987 swashbuckler fantasy novel by Tim Powers, mainly its use of Blackbeard and The Fountain of Youth. The book is often credited as being one of the original inspirations for both Pirates of the Caribbean and the Monkey Island series. I sometimes wonder if they should have done a straight-up adaptation as a stand-alone film, rather than attaching it to an existing franchise.
In conclusion, skip the film, but check out the book.
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