Title: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Age: 12
Released: 26th May 2017
Director: Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Rating: ***/**** (3.5/5 stars)
About: Johnny Depp returns to the big screen as the iconic, swashbuckling anti-hero Jack Sparrow in the all-new “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.” The rip-roaring adventure finds down-on-his-luck Captain Jack feeling the winds of ill-fortune blowing strongly his way when deadly ghost sailors, led by the terrifying Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), escape from the Devil’s Triangle bent on killing every pirate at sea-notably Jack. Jack’s only hope of survival lies in the legendary Trident of Poseidon, but to find it he must forge an uneasy alliance with Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), a brilliant and beautiful astronomer, and Henry (Brenton Thwaites), a headstrong young sailor in the Royal Navy. At the helm of the Dying Gull, his pitifully small and shabby ship, Captain Jack seeks not only to reverse his recent spate of ill fortune but to save his very life from the most formidable and malicious foe he has ever faced.
Review: This film definitely has some laugh out loud moments, a great cast (that work incredibly well together), but it’s just lacking something. . .
I loved the beginning with Captain Jack Sparrow stealing the bank (and then ultimately the entire building), that was probably one of the best scenes, to be honest, and I’m pretty sure if I watched it again I would find that scene equally as funny.
It did go by pretty quickly, but when it came to the end scene, the last twenty minutes or so, it really did drag.
There were some pretty memorable scenes, so congrats to the directors (most of which had Captain Jack Sparrow involved), the audience gets a delightfully funny scene where we see Jack trapped in a rotating guillotine, the centrifugal force pushing and pulling the spine-severing blade inches from his neck. That was a pretty clever moment, to be honest.
The two moments mentioned are only at the beginning though, and from what was a promising start, slowly starts to get lost (‘lost at sea’ if you’re in the mood for a terrible pun).
It still feels like the first Pirates of the Caribbean film that we saw in 2003, but it does not have the same feeling of adventure that the first one had. You certainly can see very similar elements – I mean there are still the same characters (and more), Jack still has his magic compass, there’s the sea. . .
But the whole story line just seems to flop. Like the mythology felt incredibly stretched and when you really thought about it, made little sense? So what, when Jake gives the compass away for a bottle of rum that then means that Salazar and his ghostly men are then free and able to escape – how? Maybe I missed something I don’t know. But when I think about it, I realised that there are so many holes in this plot line that it’s actually not as good as I thought it was.
But sure go and see this in cinemas. You’ll enjoy it if you just let yourself be emerged in the film and not think about it too much.
You’ll have fun – and it’ll definitely worthy of your time if you have a free afternoon off (or morning, up to you).
CastlesandTurrets 