Pirates of the Caribbean : Dead Men Tell No Tales (Review)
Words by Heath Robertson
Thrust into an all-new adventure, a down-on-his-luck Capt. Jack Sparrow feels the winds of ill-fortune blowing even more strongly when deadly ghost sailors led by his old nemesis, the evil Capt. Salazar, escape from the Devil’s Triangle. Jack’s only hope of survival lies in seeking out the legendary Trident of Poseidon, but to find it, he must forge an uneasy alliance with a brilliant and beautiful astronomer and a headstrong young man in the British navy.
This is the basic plot of the new Pirates 5 excursion. Just as it looked as if the swash was finally buckling and Johnny Depp’s increasingly dull career of dressing up and putting on funny accents had truly crashed onto the rocks, Dead Men Tell No Tales succeeds in relocating some of that old black magic.
The script is half decent, there are some good one-liners, and, more importantly, some superbly choreographed action scenes, not least when Jack and his motley crew (quite literally) rob a bank. Orlando Bloom remains as slappable as ever in his thankfully brief appearances as Will Turner and Bardem gives it maximum Raoul Silva as Captain Salazar. That cute cameo from Paul McCartney as Jack’s uncle is also worth a snigger;)
This is somewhat of an origins story but mostly it’s that old mix of horror, adventure, comedy and magic. The whole endeavour skips along at a rate of knots – however, like too many of its predecessors, Dead Men Tell No Tales runs aground in an overlong and patience-sapping final forty minutes.
Although better than the last couple of Pirate’s outings, this is far from compelling viewing. The good news is that this is, reportedly, the final “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, and a welcome end to what has become a big-budget cycle of a cinematic shipwreck.
2017 | AUS | DIR: Joachim Ronning, Espen Sandberg | WRITER: Jeff Nathanson | CAST: Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney | RUNNING TIME: 129 minutes
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