Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

Genres

Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Directors

Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg

Country

USA

Cast

Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario, Kevin McNally, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, Golshifteh Farahani, Stephen Graham, David Wenham, Martin Klebba, Keira Knightley, Angus Barnett, Giles New, Adam Brown, Danny Kirrane, Delroy Atkinson, Paul McCartney

Storyline

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) finds the winds of ill-fortune blowing even more strongly when deadly ghost pirates led by his old nemesis, the terrifying Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), escape from the Devil's Triangle, determined to kill every pirate at sea.

Opinion

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise started declining in quality since the very beginning with the first sequel and kept on doing just that with the following movies. In spite of that, I still decided to spend my Friday night and money on Dead Men Tell No Tales. Not that the trailer looked particularly appealing to me, I just was excited to see Javier Bardem playing a pirate, some sort of zombie-like, evil pirate - and by the way, he's not even a pirate. Anyway, he was great. The rest of the film? Well, I'm not so sure about it.

The worst thing about this film is its inability to amaze with new things. It's basically the same, old Pirates of the Caribbean movies, with a silly and tremendously predictable plot that bores so much chances are you'll end up like Salazar, a dead man. It is plenty of pointless subplots. Not to mention the plot twists with the old Barbossa. The guy does the same thing in all the movies, he joins one side and then he leaves the sinking ship.

In addition, there's the lack of emotions and that's probably because of the characters. The new characters, specifically Harry Turner, Will Turner's son, and Carina Smith, an astronomer accused of being a witch. They are beyond annoying and they lack that characterization that should get you to know them, and, I'm not saying like them, but at least having a reason to root for them.

The villain doesn't get any better than that. Although Javier Barmer is fantastic as Salazar - he's clearly having a good time - and makes you almost root for him, the character is pretty weak. Also, his backstory feels rushed. Still, his performance (easily) stands out and his scenes are never boring.

That said, Dead Men Tell No Tales still manages to be a little entertaining. In spite of the lame jokes that fall flat most of the time - I have to admit though that some people were laughing a lot -, and the action, good action but not spectacular as I was used to with the franchise, this fifth instalment - and I'm afraid not the final one - manages to entertain.