Dead Men Tell No Tales REviewed
God, remember how good the original Pirates of Caribbean was? That's all I was thinking about as I watched the fifth installment of this lazy, money grab of a franchise. The fifth. As I was writing my review for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, I kept calling it the fourth movie because I completely forgot about the one starring Penelope Cruz, which is amazing, considering On Stranger Tides is the 23rd highest grossing film OF ALL TIME. When pressed, I can only think of one guy who loves this series, though besides him I've never heard of anyone counting down the days until the newest Pirates movie. But as long as people keep buying tickets I imagine Disney will keep making them.
This story is a mess. There are about six different groups of people looking for Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) despite no character giving us an actual reason as to why they need to find him. The only person who provides any sort of motivation for finding Jack is the ghost pirate Salazar (Javier Bardem) who wants revenge. There is also a storyline involving a treasured trident that can break any curse, which can only be found with a book that needs a crystal. TL;DR Jack Sparrow wanders around drinking rum and then defeats the bad guys.
Johnny Depp has played this part so many times he could probably do it in his sleep which, if I'm being honest, is what it felt like. You have to think that with his divorce and everything else going on in his personal life that the movie was affected. At the very least it threw off the director’s schedule, so much so that the studio had to put a production assistant outside Depp’s house to let the crew know when he woke up. Luckily, Captain Jack really likes rum so if Depp ever showed up to set drunk he could just tell everyone he was being method.
This story is a mess. There are about six different groups of people looking for Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) despite no character giving us an actual reason as to why they need to find him. The only person who provides any sort of motivation for finding Jack is the ghost pirate Salazar (Javier Bardem) who wants revenge. There is also a storyline involving a treasured trident that can break any curse, which can only be found with a book that needs a crystal. TL;DR Jack Sparrow wanders around drinking rum and then defeats the bad guys.
Johnny Depp has played this part so many times he could probably do it in his sleep which, if I'm being honest, is what it felt like. You have to think that with his divorce and everything else going on in his personal life that the movie was affected. At the very least it threw off the director’s schedule, so much so that the studio had to put a production assistant outside Depp’s house to let the crew know when he woke up. Luckily, Captain Jack really likes rum so if Depp ever showed up to set drunk he could just tell everyone he was being method.
You know what I really like about this movie? The music. I love the instrumental soundtrack for this franchise.
The new actors playing the de facto Will and Elizabeth—Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario—aren't quite as good as Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, but for a discounted rate they have enough chemistry to be enjoyable. They match the performances given by Depp, Geoffrey Rush, and Javier Bardem, who is more difficult to understand than usual as he uses a cartoonish Spanish accent.
There are some redeemable aspects to this movie. The action and the fight scenes are well-staged and fun to watch. There are a couple of other cool CGI scenes—one involving a guillotine, and the other a flashback featuring a younger looking Johnny Depp. However, for every good use of CGI, there was something that didn't look as good. For example, the ghosts look silly due in part to giant portions of their body being missing. There are also scenes involving characters walking in the ocean that don't look quite right.
This is the shortest movie in the series at two hours and nine minutes and still feels like it takes forever to get through. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is better than the second and the third one but what is that really saying? You can wait to watch this movie on HBO if you’re looking for something new, but not too new that you might actually have to pay attention. D
There are some redeemable aspects to this movie. The action and the fight scenes are well-staged and fun to watch. There are a couple of other cool CGI scenes—one involving a guillotine, and the other a flashback featuring a younger looking Johnny Depp. However, for every good use of CGI, there was something that didn't look as good. For example, the ghosts look silly due in part to giant portions of their body being missing. There are also scenes involving characters walking in the ocean that don't look quite right.
This is the shortest movie in the series at two hours and nine minutes and still feels like it takes forever to get through. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is better than the second and the third one but what is that really saying? You can wait to watch this movie on HBO if you’re looking for something new, but not too new that you might actually have to pay attention. D
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