Where Each Pirates of the Caribbean Sequel Went Wrong

Whether it’s the lack of scares in Dead Man’s Chest or the lack of stakes in On Stranger Tides, each Pirates of the Caribbean sequel had a problem.

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No Pirates of the Caribbean installment has recaptured the freewheeling fun of the original movie, 2003’s The Curse of the Black Pearl, but what did each subsequent franchise outing get so disastrously wrong? It’s more than understandable that industry insiders did not expect the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl, to succeed at the box office upon the movie’s 2003 release. However, the failure of the film’s sequels with critics (despite the franchise’s financial success) is harder to understand.

Despite boasting Lord of the Rings star Orlando Bloom as its ostensible hero Will Turner, the original Pirates of the Caribbean had many warning signs of an impending flop. For one thing, many of the stars, such as Kiera Knightley and Geoffrey Rush, had little experience headlining blockbuster movies in leading roles. Meanwhile, the movie’s director Gore Verbinski was best known for his austere then-recent horror The Ring, which was far from fun, and swashbuckling action sub-genre as a whole had been unpopular at the box office since the historic failure of Renny Harlin’s infamous flop Cutthroat Island only eight years earlier.

Despite these apparent impediments, The Curse of the Black Pearl soon proved to be that rarest of beasts — a big, fun summer blockbuster that wowed critics as much as it impressed general audiences. Thanks to breakout star Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise became one of cinema’s most popular properties overnight. However, despite the return of Depp for all four sequels and the presence of both Bloom and Knightley (as well as helmer Verbinski) in the first two, none of the later films in the franchise could recapture the success of the first film. The Pirates of the Caribbean series remains phenomenally successful in financial terms, but in terms of critical and fan appraisal, the consensus is that none of The Curse of the Black Pearl’s four sequels managed to soar to the heights of the first film. With the franchise to continue yet further via Margot Robbie’s upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean reboot, now is as good a time as ever to interrogate what went wrong with each of the sequels in the series.

Dead Man’s Chest Isn’t Scary Enough

The first Pirates of the Caribbean sequel is among the more popular offerings of the franchise. Despite an overly complicated plot, 2006’s Dead Man’s Chest did not suffer the brutal reviews that were meted out on later movies in the series. However, while the sequel does feature plenty of fast-paced and inventive cartoony action, the zany chases and Looney Tunes-inspired slapstick don’t have the urgency and impact of the first film. This is due to a dearth of genuinely threatening, scary villains. There is no denying that the slimy, semi-human villain Davy Jones and his crew of half-coral shipmates are gross.

However, the group is far from scary and can’t hold a candle to the first film’s unsettling zombie pirates. This issue is compounded by the movie’s lighting, which renders the villains even less threatening. It is undeniably impressive that Dead Man’s Chest boasted a big enough budget to stage its CGI-heavy final battle in broad daylight, but unfortunately, the villains are even less scary with no shadows obscuring them (even if they do look believable, which the lighting was likely chosen to accentuate). As a result, much of the potential for fear and mounting tension is sapped from the story.

At World’s End Is Too Tragic

By the time the overlong ending of Gore Verbinski’s final Pirates of the Caribbean outing rolls around, Will Turner has sacrificed ten years of his life to free his father’s soul, leaving him and Elizabeth separated for a decade after two films of will-they-won’t-they romance. Davy Jones and Tia Dalma are revealed to be star-crossed lovers and their story ends in heartbreak, and Jack is left alone again, his brief alliances with numerous parties destroyed. Any of these tragic touches alone would have been enough to lend an air of pathos to the otherwise fun film. However, adding all of these sad moments together left the tone of the threequel feeling overwhelmingly bleak for a theoretically fun summer blockbuster. Like any franchise, the series does need some emotional depth in its plots, but leaving most of the major characters dead or devastated was a bridge too far for a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel that many viewers expected to be a thrilling romp on the high seas.

On Stranger Tides Is Too Silly

2011’s soft reboot On Stranger Tides suffered the opposite problem from At World’s End, dropping Elizabeth and Will but replacing them with no one worth watching. None of the emotional stakes of this Jack Sparrow-centric story land as audiences know the hero was never in real danger. Jack’s life is never in serious peril thanks to his quick wit and guile (he even survives dying in the original trilogy). This is not necessarily a problem on its own, but with little screen time spent developing the movie’s new characters, there was no reason to care about them or worry about their survival. As a result, On Stranger Tides had no compelling drama animating its story, and ended up too silly to be engaging. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that the villains were never particularly threatening — particularly when viewers discover that Jack’s apparent love interest is the secret daughter of his supposed nemesis.

Dead Men Tell No Tales Tried Too Hard

Javier Bardem’s Captain Salazar is the most over-the-top villain of the Pirates of the Caribbean series so far in Dead Men Tell No Tales, and while this could have worked if he were the only “bigger is better” element of the sequel, it becomes a problem when the movie tries to do too much of everything. The revelation that the only new character of note, Carina, is actually Barbossa’s daughter is both too obvious and a plot hole that doesn’t add up mathematically, and the (literally) last-minute inclusion of Will and Elizabeth reeks of fan service. With sillier villains, more backstory, a connection to the original trilogy, and a sequel hook, the overstuffed Dead Men Tell No Tales tried to be everything to everyone and failed to find the easy charm of the original movie as a result. Despite the convoluted machinations of its leading man, the Pirates of the Caribbean thrives on simplicity, something this movie badly misunderstood.

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