Years ago, Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) cursed Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) to live an eternal life trapped within the confines of the Devil's Triangle. During a bank robbery, Jack's path crosses with Henry Turner (Brendon Thwaites), the son of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Kiera Knightley), who seeks to free his father from his curse, and Carina Smith (Kaya Scodelario), who has been branded a witch for her scientific knowledge. As Salazer and his undead crew pursue them through the sea, the three embark on a quest to find Poseidon's Trident, which has the power to end all curses of the sea.
The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is one that I've always had a certain fondness for, due to my nostalgic attachment to it and my overall love for the sort of adventures that they deliver. But in revisiting the franchise, some of the shine has gone away, and except for the first one - which I will always defend as a great film - each entry in the franchise has a number of flaws that drag them down. Dead Men Tell No Tales is certainly achievement in a certain way; I never thought that I could be so angry at one of these movies. But here we are.
Dead Men Tell No Tales is essentially a two-hour checklist of everything that makes the Pirates films bad. Unfunny Jack Sparrow antics? Check. Villain with vague motivations played extremely over-the-top by an iconic actor? Check. Convoluted and nonsensical plot? Check. Jarring tonal dissonance? Check. A mixture of impressive and awkward visual effects? Check. "Comedy" scenes that grind the plot to a halt and only serve to pad out an already too-long film? BIG check. But this film doesn't even deliver enough irreverent fun to allow me to overlook the flaws, or take them in stride as part of the experience. It was just detraction after detraction.
Dead Men Tell No Tales feels out of place and out of time. The relevance of this franchise is gone, but it also hasn't been long enough for this sequel to feel really nostalgic. Jack Sparrow especially feels played-out, and his humour was almost aggressively unfunny. At this point, there's nothing left for Jack to do, as every film just resets him to the same point by the end. He's not funny or engaging anymore, and I just have to wonder how many supernatural pirate monsters he has an antagonistic past with. Geoffrey Rush is mostly recapturing the same manic energy that defines his Barbossa character, but he's a very small shining point.
The new elements of the franchise weren't much better. Brendon Thwaites was as generic as he's ever been, while Kaya Scodelario was trying very hard, and had a bit more to work with. They're essentially supposed to be the new Will and Elizabeth, but they're not particularly likeable or charming. Far worse is the villain, with Javier Bardem giving the same off-kilter performance that he always does as a villain. The sound editing on his voice makes half of his lines incomprehensible, and the visual effects that make his hair float around his head every time it moves are very distracting. He's not threatening, and his motivation is just "I want to get Jack Sparrow". Because we've never seen that before.
I guess it's a small victory that this film is only two hours long, as previous entries in the franchise have kept going far past that point. But Dead Men Tell No Tales doesn't move along with the breezy, lighthearted, adventurous feel that you expect. It just plods on and on, and the last thing I expected this film to be is boring. It feels like a disjointed amalgamation of scenes that we've seen before - from Pirates movies and others - that is just trying to remind the audience of better movies. I guess the movie is filmed well enough, and directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg make an effort to add a new feel, which is admirable. The soundtrack is also solid, but these things don't mean much in comparison to everything else.
Every aspect of Dead Men Tell No Tales is uninteresting. The villains are a re-tread of the first movie, the characters are flat, the acting is over-the-top, but not in a fun way, the effects look passable, and the story never presents a development that's unexpected or surprising. The movie just happens, you sit there and watch it, and then you walk away with your life changed in no way. Then it becomes actively annoying by repeatedly cutting to pointless "comedy" scenes that serve only to pad out the run-time. The best part of this movie is the end credits, not just because the movie was over, but because we finally get to hear the incredible Pirates theme again.
As someone who enjoys the overall lore and story of the Pirates world, this movie is a bit of a slap in the face. Not only does is contradict several things that have previously been established, but the updated backstories are so lazy. Even the main goal of the film feels lazy; Poseidon's Trident is a fairly meaningless goal. It exists only to undo every single curse and magical consequence of the previous films in the franchise. The solution itself is so half-assed, and just felt like the writers were trying to put some more pieces into play for yet another sequel. Nothing in this film is satisfying, or makes much sense.
If this film had been released - with massive changes - instead of On Stranger Tides, then maybe it would have been a somewhat satisfying ending to the Pirates franchise. This movie brings a few crucial plot points of the franchise to a conclusion, but it also feels like an isolated, stand-alone adventure. It needed to make up its mind about being a soft reboot and establishing new characters for new adventures, or bringing the franchise to a close. That lack of focus is present in every aspect of the movie, and it makes for a very frustrating viewing experience.
I guess on some level, I understand why audiences are responding well to this movie. It delivers exactly what you'd expect from a Pirates movie, and if you want nothing more than the bare minimum from it, with nothing new, you'll likely be satisfied. I thought I could just sit back and enjoy this movie, and I certainly wanted to, but it just asked me to accept too much stupidity. Dead Men Tell No Tales certainly won't be the last Pirates movie we'll see in the near future, but this franchise is now old, tired, and really has nothing left to offer.
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