Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

At this point, if you don’t know what you’re getting into with a new Pirates movie then maybe you should just skip out on this one all together. On the other hand, if you know full well what you’re about to see, then welcome back ya landlubber!

The fifth entry in a franchise based on a freaking Disney ride, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales sees our cast of misfits on the hunt for a new McGuffin: the Trident of Poseidon. Rumored to be able to control the seas as well as break any curse on them, newcomer Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), son of the original film’s protagonists Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley), seeks out the trident in order to break Will Turner’s curse of being the immortal captain of the Flying Dutchman, the very same ship Will had literally become a part of in the final moments of At World’s End. With a smart and wrongfully accused “witch” going by the name of Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) helping Henry along, series mascot (cuz that’s exactly what he is now), Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) somehow gets injected into the proceedings with Captain Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) tagging along just because. As the search for the trident grows dire, a new baddie in the form of Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) – an old nemesis of Jack’s – resurfaces, complete with his own undead crew and a thirst for revenge. Now it’s a race to see who can get to the trident first, and who will ultimately use it for the good of the seven seas, or worse, who will use it to rule them.

I have to say, as much as this franchise does wrong, there’s always been just enough that works in any given film where even a bad egg in the franchise (oh hai, On Stranger Tides) is good for killing a couple hours and not hating yourself too much for it. No, you’re not going to see anything here that’ll single handedly revive this franchise a la the resurgence the Fast and the Furious series has recently enjoyed, and no, you’re not going to pick this one as your favorite in the franchise, but with a new villain in the form of Captain Salazar creeping up the joint, the continued if not over abused use of Jack Sparrow, and the addition of some interesting plot threads and characters harkening back to the original trilogy, there’s enough going on in Dead Men Tell No Tales to like, even when the paper thin script squanders a lot of the good.

Being an adventure flick, this film is at its best when the script takes a break from trying to over explain everything and gets down to the fun-centric action set pieces that this series is known for. Like I said before, On Stranger Tides left a bad taste in my mouth for more than one reason – the uninspired and bland action and story being the main culprits – but with Dead Men Tell No Tales, I found myself genuinely enjoying most of the action scenes, rolling my eyes when another forced line of dialogue made Cap’n Jack look like a fool and being oddly intrigued by the connections to the original trilogy, regardless of whether or not they paid off properly. Mix in some really cool visuals and you have a perfectly mediocre sequel that fits right in with this series’ quality as of late.

Dead Men Tell No Tales is by no means a good movie, but it’s similar enough in tone and story to Cap’n Jack’s original outing that it accidentally hits its stride from time to time, at its best giving us a glorious repeat of the magic of the first film and at its worst giving us more than we needed or asked for at this point in the franchise’s lifespan. It’s a problem most “refreshed” movies have nowadays, the filmmakers want so badly to recapture that magic from the original film in any given franchise that they’re willing to thinly veil a sequel that is essentially the same movie in all but name i.e. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, Alien: Covenant and so on. I don’t blame them for it, critics and fans alike love to say “go back to what worked in the first place”, but in this instance, I more so blame the shoddy cover-up the filmmakers tried to pull instead of actually trying to give this film the proper nostalgic flair that worked so well for some of the previously mentioned franchises. Bad isn’t necessarily the right word I’d use to describe this film, lazy seems more in line with what’s been done here, but take it as you will.

Better than the last sequel but still lacking the spark and inherent fun of the original, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a so-so film that does its job as a sequel even if the franchise has aged itself – and its characters – out of being something more relevant and entertaining. I personally love these films, but I can’t look past the fact that this rinse and repeat script has killed most of the fun, new additions this sequel attempts to inject into the proceedings rather than help them, a problem that the filmmakers seemed to try and rectify by following the original’s blueprint so closely which unfortunately ends up doing more harm than good. At the end of the day, this is more of the same, so if you like good ol’ Cap’n Jack and crew, can withstand a whole bunch of nonsense (that Barbossa related twist was just awful), then put on your sea-legs cuz this ship has already set sail and you don’t want to miss it. For everyone else, just ask yourself if Johnny Depp is really worth your hard earned cash.