Pirate of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Disney Pictures
Directed by: Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg
Written by: Jeff Nathanson, Terry Rossio
Starring: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scoderlario, Kevin McNally, Golshifteh Farahnai
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales will be in theaters this weekend. The 5th installment of Disney’s popular franchise has been highly anticipated and previous films have broken box office records across the globe. While this current offering is on-track to an $80 million opening weekend domestically and $175 million internationally, that still puts it below the last 3 iterations and I predict a sharp decline after that. Here is my spoiler-free take on ‘Pirates 5’:
As a fan of the original trilogy, I was looking forward to seeing more of the same breathless adventure that I’d come to expect from Captain Jack Sparrow & Company. With the exceptions of the always outstanding Geoffrey Rush and the intriguing new villain played brilliantly by Javier Bardem, it seemed like the rest of the cast was tired and almost bored. Even the youthful injection of Kaya Scodelario and Brenton Thwaites as Carina Smyth and Henry Turner, respectively, weren’t enough to ever propel the film forward with any compelling amount of vigor. The plot also seemed a little muddled and gave the impression that there were too many strings that had to be pulled together to make the story cohesive. I didn’t feel invested in the movie until a little past the half way point when we see Javier Bardem’s character of Captain Salazar tell his origin story. The action from there picked up significantly and the film ended on a strong note while, naturally, leaving the possibility of another movie should Disney decide to go there.
The film also gives us a look at how Jack Sparrow became Captain which is tied directly into the back-story of Bardem’s creepy, yet majestic Captain Salazar. While the movie’s first half seems to drag and Johnny Depp himself seems to have lost that whimsical spring in his step that we’ve come to expect from Captain Jack over the years, the film will no doubt dominate the Memorial Day box office just as the Bond movies continue to do well each time a new one is released. If you are a fan of the ‘Pirates’ franchise, then this movie is definitely worth your time, but it ends up being my least favorite installment to date and probably not one that I would revisit until it hits Bluray. I’d say Dead Men Tell No Tales fails to get the gold and, for me, sails off into an unsatisfying sunset.
