There’s a good reason why only one movie is opening this weekend. It’s because no one dared go up against Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth in the series.
It’s not just the star power of Pirates, though there’s plenty of that. Johnny Depp returns as the lovable, slurring Captain Jack Sparrow, with Geoffrey Rush as Barbarossa and Penelope Cruz this time instead of Keira Knightley. It’s because, as franchises go, Pirates is colossal. The first movie made $700 million and the second and third averaged a billion or so.
Still, the early buzz is flat. The Guardian calls it "a succession of ever-escalating action sequences and grand settings.” Salon meanwhile bestows muted praise, saying that it “makes for a perfectly acceptable night out.”
Whether Captain Jack can give current Box Office frontrunner, Thor, a run for its money remains to be seen. Starring Oscar-winner Natalie Portman and up-and-comer, Chris Hemsworth in the title role, Thor tells the story of an arrogant superhero who is banished to Earth as punishment and becomes a true hero. Reviews are mixed—The Chicago Reader dubbed Thor “eminently missable” while New York mag’s David Edelstein calls it “surprisingly agreeable, a happy change from all those aggressively down-to-earth superhero flicks like Iron Man.”
But if superheroes and pirates aren’t your bag, there’s always Bridesmaids, an edgy chick flick which opened big last weekend. Produced by the king of the man-cave movie, Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up), it stars Saturday Night Live regular Kristen Wiig as a 30-something, unlucky-at-love single girl who becomes the “maid of dishonor” when her best friend suddenly gets hitched. According to Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman, Wiig is the key: “She's the rare SNL player who may prove to be a movie star because she's a true actress as well.”
But will she be able to keep Captain Jack from the top spot? Now that would be something to see…
What movie do you wish you were part of?
