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PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES is quite a misleading title in many ways. First off, the movie no longer takes place in the Caribbean. While it never actually says which bodies of water this movie takes place in, the two countries involved are England and Spain, so it's safe to say we've moved to the Mediterranean Sea. And second, ON STRANGER TIDES treads nothing but familiar waters.

One thing that OST does do that the previous trilogy did not was to make Jack Sparro—sorry. Captain Jack Sparrow—the protagonist of the film. Take a moment and think: Who was the main character in THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL? It wasn't Jack; it was Will Turner. Will was on a journey to save Elizabeth, and Jack was merely his means to an end. Jack was never really a good guy. He's a pirate, after all. He's out for himself and toys with the characters actually involved with the story for his own personal amusement, only to succumb to his conscience and help save the day. But having Jack as an outside character—with us not knowing his ultimate intentions until the very end—was what lead him to be one of the most recognizable characters of this generation. But he's not a protagonist.

Not all of Captain Jack's charisma is gone. He's still an entertaining character, but the mystery of what he's going to do next just isn't there anymore. I can't really blame Depp for this, as he pulls off Sparrow like he was born for it. But the writers just to have put him in a spot where he doesn't belong. Jack's intentions still aren't clear from the get-go, but the movie sets it up to be his story. And that causes some narrative problems.

The movie itself is easily the worst of the series. To put that in perspective, I LOVE all three previous movies. Even AT WORLD'S END I adore. They're this generation's INDIANA JONES. While some may say it's better than 2 or 3, it doesn't really hold true to the original.

Story-wise, it's pretty straightforward. Multiple groups of people are trying to find the Fountain of Youth for their own reasons. We're just seeing who's going to get there first and who's going to get what they want. Simple as that. But, as Captain Jack says so eloquently in one of his many clever, fourth wall-breaking comments, "It's not so much the destination so much as the journey." Too bad the journey isn't all that interesting.

While the trailer points out both zombies and mermaids, only the mermaids hold any plot significance. The zombies are there because. . . well, why not? The first movie had a crew that turned into skeletons in the moonlight, and the second and third movie had a crew of mutated humans who looked like sea monsters. So why not make the crew of the bad guy's ship "zombie-fied"? I will say, though, the mermaid scene was pretty damn brilliant. Too bad it's the most original and interesting part of the film, and it comes at about half-way in.

Probably my biggest complaint is that many things that happen in OST just seem to be far too reminiscent of the original movie. The first escape scene is far too much like the one in the first movie, and the first sword fight is far too familiar to that of Sparrow vs. Turner—they even fight up on planks on beams of the roof just like in the first movie. Even the final battle takes place in a cavern with rays of light coming down in patches from the holes all around. It's all too familiar and very uninspired—not to say it isn't enjoyable, but it's nothing new. Other than the mermaid sequence, nothing stands out. There's no fight with people morphing back and forth from skeletons. There's no fight on a rolling water wheel. There's no fight on ships trapped in a whirlpool.

One thing the movie never does is become bad. It's just disappointing how mediocre it ends up being. The movie is still enjoyable and has a lot of that humor from the original three. The characters are still fun to follow, and the locations are gorgeous. But it just doesn't go on past decent most of the time and never beyond good. Is it worth checking out? Yeah. Despite my negative criticisms, the movie's still fun to watch. Just don't expect the same magic that the first three had.

Zack Snyder is an interesting director. I definitely think he's a very talented individual with a very good eye for the craft. 300, WATCHMEN, GUARDIANS and SUCKER PUNCH all have a very unique visual style and are all very well made films. However, SUCKER PUNCH is going to make me question anything he has a part in that involves him putting a pen to paper.

I love the whole idea and concept of SUCKER PUNCH. However, ideas and concepts can only go so far. SP is a story about what someone is willing to go through in order to cope with the struggles and obstacles in front of them. How sometimes you have to resort to your imagination just to pull through. And within these imaginary worlds they're able to do anything they want. I like the story, but the entire time I found myself not giving a crap. Snyder fails to do the most important thing when making a story like this, and that's bring the emotion.

It's not the actors' fault either. Every single person on screen brings everything they've got. Even Vanessa Hudgens is good, which feels really strange coming through my finger tips, and Jamie Chung is actually convincing. Everyone really does a fine job. Aside from action, Snyder knows how to work with actors. Unfortunately I can't say the same for being able to write characters.

One thing Snyder has proved in his career is that he's got an eye for action and style. Each set piece is brilliantly put together and visually stunning. Within the imagination of Baby Doll (Emily Browning) everything is amazingly surreal. It's chaotic and really the most impressive part of the entire film. The fights, whether they be gun fights, sword fights, a dragon chasing a plane or 3 girls on a train full of robots, are well choreographed and everything is shot so you can see what's going on. I do think Snyder is a little too obsessed with slo-mo and it occasionally gets to be too much.

What's unfortunate about all the effort and hard work that went into these brilliantly staged set pieces is that I just didn't care. Because of the nature of these scenes, being inside of an imagination, there wasn't much at stake. Characters weren't in any real danger of dying and the lack of emotion had me a bit bored despite how pretty it looked. When I was watching it I was thinking "damn, that was cool" but at the same time I didn't feel the urgency the characters supposedly felt. And after a while the aesthetic of the eye candy wore off and I became fairly bored.

I'm not sure what went wrong here. I usually dig mindless action as long as it's well presented. SUCKER PUNCH is definitely one of the best presented mindless action in years, but something stopped me from really enjoying the movie like I wanted to. It's got everything I could have asked for: Hot girls in little clothing, dragons, sword fights, gun fights, mechs, robots. Everything except emotion. I don't think it was from lack of trying either. It just felt lost somewhere, buried beneath all the "cool" of the movie.

It's hard to say whether I'd recommend SUCKER PUNCH or not. I'm leaning towards a no because from other people's reactions they didn't enjoy it as much as they hoped. It's great eye-candy, but when it's done you'll be craving something more filling. Zack Snyder I still think is a great director, but I don't think he should play around with story too much anymore. I want to see him direct something where he had no hand in the writing process and keeps the story close to the original script. I guess we'll see what happens when SUPERMAN comes out.

I was hesitant about THE DEATHLY HALLOWS at first. I was excited, yes, but reserved. David Yates kind of let me down with THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE (my second least favorite) after liking THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX (my second favorite up) so much. Mr. Yates, you've redeemed yourself. THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PT.1 is fantastic and is now my second favorite movie of the franchise.

THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PT.1 carries the descending dark tone of the series further. This movie is filled with tension and dread throughout. From the get-go the stakes are high and emotion is flaring. The pre-title scene does an incredible job setting the tone for the rest of the film. I truly felt genuine sorrow for the characters, especially Hermione.

The aspect of the film I really liked was the sort of genre switch from the previous films. It's still a fantasy film, but this one really feels like a horror movie at times. The way scenes are shot and set up there's a real nerve racking tension to every scene. And seeing these characters grow over 6 films the connection with them really draws a heightened sense of apprehension. Some scenes were so tense you could hear a pin drop in a sold out crowd. And the sweat on the character's forward was a visual representation of the audience's. The effects were incredible and seamless with the story. Probably the only thing that I really felt was fake was the snake in the beginning of the film, but other than that I bought every bit of visuals TDH threw at me. I'm EXTREMELY glad they didn't do this movie in 3D because I don't think the post-conversion 3D would have done any justice at all and would actually detract from the story. The movie is very dimly lit and with the light taken away with the glasses some scenes would have been nearly impossible to see what's going on if any dimmer. I hope they don't post-convert part 2.

There's a fantastic animated sequence in near the beginning of the third act which is gorgeous. It serves as extra exposition but could really be considered a nice short film. It doesn't come off as forced or distracting in the slightest either. It could have been weird since there hasn't been anything like it in any previous installment of the series but actually fits in very nicely.

There are some pretty impressive action sequences as well. All but one set piece were really well executed. The one set piece that kind of bothered me was the only real one that we see the entirety of. It's a chase through the woods and while it is very well shot most of the time, it has a few too many "Bourne shots" where the shaky cam moves around way too much. I understand that they're trying to put you there with the characters, but too much is too much. Aside from those occasional shaky cam shots -- which thankfully there aren't too many of -- the cinematography for that scene and all others are great.

Only thing about most the action is that because the main characters were vaulted out of them so quickly, we don't actually see what happens. We get a taste, but the plate is passed along and we're onto the next entree. I can't fault the movie for this, in fact I actually have to give it a tip of the hat. Some of the bigger battle moments I'm sure would have been spectacular to see, but they would have dragged down the film since the movie is very story driven.

While the series is now in a very dark place, it doesn't get overwhelming. It is extraordinarily uneasy at times and pretty dreadful, but it's got nice bits of very effect comic relief at key moments to lighten things up for some breathing room. The laughs thankfully don't feel at all force but rather very natural. They also really help with some pacing. Those quick moments of laughter fill in for some of the down time.

I heard someone who saw an advance of the film say that they thought it was boring and slow. While I can't agree, I can see how he would think so. The film does swiftly exit almost every fight sequence and there is a lot of sitting around in the woods trying to decide what to do. There is a segment of the film where there isn't a lot going on, and people who aren't drawn into the story will be bored.

TDH doesn't cater to non-fans. There's no flash backs, no retracing steps already taken, no "previously on" moments. If you've been following the movies then you're good, you don't have to have read the books (I haven't yet), but if you haven't paid attention in the previous films you may feel a bit lost. But that's the perfect way to go. This is the seventh film in a series, so making a movie for people who haven't enjoyed the first six would be a silly decision to make.

Being a "Part 1" film, it does end on sort of an ellipsis. There is kind of a climax, but not really. It is kind of like KILL BILL VOL. 1 where right when the story gets to the "oh crap!" point you see "Directed by." It was to be expected. Being a two part finale to the biggest franchise of this era, they're making it as epic as possible. There's a lot of book to include in a single movie. It feels like they filmed one movie then cut it at the half way point. It's either going to make the audience feel ripped off or make the audience extremely anxious to see the final half. I didn't feel ripped off, I'm truly excited for the finale.