Today’s quick review: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. When his old enemy Salazar (Javier Bardem) escapes his prison with his ghostly crew, a washed-up Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) must locate Poseidon’s Trident to defeat him. Joining in his endeavor are Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), a young man who seeks the Trident to break his father’s curse, and Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), an astronomer with a map to the Trident left to her by her father.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a fantasy action adventure movie and the fifth movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Set five years after On Stranger Tides and nearly two decades after At World’s End, Dead Men Tell No Tales finds Jack Sparrow on a Caribbean island with no ship, no crew, and only a slim hope of surviving Salazar’s revenge: a mythical trident that cannot be found.
Dead Men Tell No Tales continues the usual Pirates of the Caribbean blend of off-kilter humor, pirate fantasy-driven plot, and inventive action sequences. The movie picks up plot threads from the third and fourth films and sees the return of several familiar faces. At the same time, the film throws plenty of new elements into the mix, including the Trident, bits of Jack’s past, and two young, new protagonists.
As far as quality goes, Dead Men Tell No Tales is solid but not outstanding. The film’s creative pirate fantasy and unique sense of daring are something that only the Pirates of the Caribbean series can provide, and for spectacle and entertainment alone, it is a good watch. But the writing is not as sharp as previous entries in the series, the new elements feel like remixes of old concepts, and the plot is not as elaborate as it could have been.
Still, Dead Men Tell No Tales makes for an entertaining watch that advances the series’ canon. Watch Dead Men Tell No Tales if you enjoyed the other Pirates of the Caribbean movies and are in the mood for a well-polished adventure. Though a few weaknesses keep it from joining the ranks of the best movies in the series, Dead Men Tell No Tales has enough quality and novelty to be worth checking out.
7.1 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 7.0 for great action, good humor, and decent writing.