Once again Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is drunk, pirates appear, ships explode, and ghosts are inconsequentially pertinent to the plot. If "Cutthroat Island" didn't kill the pirate genre, then "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" will.
I will admit, the film opens promisingly enough, when a new bank is being christened, lauded the safest safe in all of fictional pirate land. They swing open the door to the public, only to find Jack drunk inside. As it turns out, he is here to steal the safe, but when gunshots scare the horses, the entire bank is pulled from the ground. Remember kids, don't rob and drink.This one scene is the most fun in the entire running time, where both main and secondary characters are pulled onto the bank and off of the lumbering building, all clearly shot and genuinely fun to watch. This is the sole moment when the flick achieves the low-rent "Indiana Jones" style the rest of the film lusts for, where action is blended masterfully with humor and spectacle. Save for the rare land reprieve, the remainder of film then sets off on the open seas, where it becomes murky, with clumsy closeups of characters reacting to ghosts, pirates, and ghost pirates (as well as ghost sharks) and poorly staged action on what looked to be slightly unfinished CGI landscapes (or does that make them waterscapes?).
The plot chronicles Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), a talented actor wasted here as a pirate hunter who met his maker from the soused Mr. Sparrow. His usual flamboyance are diluted behind pounds of makeup and CGI as a ghost trapped in the Devil's Triangle. Well, that is until dipsomaniac Jack barters his compass for a drink, which frees the pirate-prejudice man to scour the seas in a manic search for the alcoholic swashbuckler. In toe are Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), son of Orlando Bloom's character in the franchise (the actor has nothing but a glorified cameo here) who is after Jack so that he can help him find the Trident of Poseidon, and Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), an orphan (?) and astronomer who is convicted of witchcraft. She believes Henry can help her find the trident, and he thinks Jack can help him do the same. In between all of this, Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) enters a plea bargain with the Salazar (remember him from earlier in the plot?), to help the ghost man find Jack so that he will spare his own life.
If that does not make any sense, that is because the film has failed at cohesive story telling. This is the fifth film in the franchise, based on a ride at Disneyland, and has been going on for fourteen years, so to give the filmmakers any slack would be to accept their exploitation of a gimmick premise. And although I did indeed follow the plot, there are far too many primary, secondary, and tertiary characters here, each with far too much to say but without anything interesting to speak of. Every single hero and villain here is a stereotype of actual film characters, but only star Johnny Depp seems to realize that, and have fun with it. Inside all the luscious outfits and beneath the eyeliner are shells of anything human, and with all the CGI here, I'm half surprised this was not entirely made inside a computer.
But perhaps the biggest disappointment here is the film's diluted definition of the genre of "pirates:" people have bad teeth, ships are sailed, and ragged clothing is worn, but that is it. The gunfire is all shockingly accurate but unsatisfying, as well as the sword fighting, where blades are tapped together, the actor is replaced by stunt double, who promptly falls on the floor to avoid choreographed swordsmanship. All honest buccaneering has been attenuated into generic explosions and mythological action. Picture this, the water is parted late in the film. No, this is not the telling of Exodus, this is a film out of ideas.
The plot chronicles Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), a talented actor wasted here as a pirate hunter who met his maker from the soused Mr. Sparrow. His usual flamboyance are diluted behind pounds of makeup and CGI as a ghost trapped in the Devil's Triangle. Well, that is until dipsomaniac Jack barters his compass for a drink, which frees the pirate-prejudice man to scour the seas in a manic search for the alcoholic swashbuckler. In toe are Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), son of Orlando Bloom's character in the franchise (the actor has nothing but a glorified cameo here) who is after Jack so that he can help him find the Trident of Poseidon, and Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), an orphan (?) and astronomer who is convicted of witchcraft. She believes Henry can help her find the trident, and he thinks Jack can help him do the same. In between all of this, Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) enters a plea bargain with the Salazar (remember him from earlier in the plot?), to help the ghost man find Jack so that he will spare his own life.
If that does not make any sense, that is because the film has failed at cohesive story telling. This is the fifth film in the franchise, based on a ride at Disneyland, and has been going on for fourteen years, so to give the filmmakers any slack would be to accept their exploitation of a gimmick premise. And although I did indeed follow the plot, there are far too many primary, secondary, and tertiary characters here, each with far too much to say but without anything interesting to speak of. Every single hero and villain here is a stereotype of actual film characters, but only star Johnny Depp seems to realize that, and have fun with it. Inside all the luscious outfits and beneath the eyeliner are shells of anything human, and with all the CGI here, I'm half surprised this was not entirely made inside a computer.
But perhaps the biggest disappointment here is the film's diluted definition of the genre of "pirates:" people have bad teeth, ships are sailed, and ragged clothing is worn, but that is it. The gunfire is all shockingly accurate but unsatisfying, as well as the sword fighting, where blades are tapped together, the actor is replaced by stunt double, who promptly falls on the floor to avoid choreographed swordsmanship. All honest buccaneering has been attenuated into generic explosions and mythological action. Picture this, the water is parted late in the film. No, this is not the telling of Exodus, this is a film out of ideas.
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