Movie Breakdown: Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Pre-Screening Stance:
Pirates Of The Caribbean 1 is a great movie. Pirates 2 & 3 are OK movies. I didn’t even bother with Pirates 4, but I heard it wasn’t good. Frankly, I’m surprised (or disappointed, I don’t know) that there’s a Pirates 5, but people gotta eat and get their swashbuckling fix in, I suppose.
Post-Screening Ramble:
To be honest, I don’t even know what Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales was about. Franchise face Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is around but he’s got half a crew, no ship and is surprisingly sidelined for most scenes. Series regular Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush) is present as well, but mostly just because he has a shoehorned connection to one of the main characters, a discount Keira Knightley (Kaya Scodelario). There’s a budget Orlando Bloom (Brenton Thwaites) involved, too, but he doesn’t seem to have any particularly useful skills. He just wants to bumble about until he finds some magical trident that will free the actual Orlando Bloom from a life of servitude aboard the Flying Dutchman. Javier Bardem plays a cursed pirate killer who wants to take down Sparrow. Or all pirates. I’m not really sure. There’s a somewhat perplexing Paul McCartney cameo, but it at least made me smile since everything up until then was confusing and one shade above awful. On the action front, it’s all rather boring. There are some neat designs, but none of them go anywhere and once the eye candy simmers, you realize you’re watching a bunch of bored actors in a tired franchise. Seriously, there’s nothing here worth cheering for or remembering (obviously). Hell, I can’t even call this film a misfire because all parties involved didn’t even bother loading the canon. I think in most years this is the kind of movie that would kill a bunch of careers, but I guess in sequel happy Hollywood this will pass as solid filler. What a shipwreck. Skip it.
One Last Thought:
I’m willing to bet $20 that Johnny Depp was actually drunk during the making of this movie. I couldn’t understand a damn thing he was saying due to all of the slurring.
