Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) Movie Review
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) Movie Review
Dead Men Tell No Tales is a tired, loud, and overblown movie. While it's much better than I expected, I can’t really say this movie was good. The Internet loves Jack Sparrow’s (Johnny Depp) character, and I was hoping he would be one of the best parts of the movie. He isn’t. Jack just seems stupid and drunk, while falsely believing he's really cool (exactly like this movie). I had no interest whatsoever in virtually any of the characters, partly because I had never seen a Pirates of the Caribbean movie before this.
Henry (Brenton Thwaites) and Carina (Kaya Scodelario) are both bland characters. Since this is my first time in the franchise, I can’t be for sure whether I’m spoiling anything during this review, so I apologize if I reveal some huge twist I didn’t realize existed.
I hate to sound so negative, but I’m not even exactly sure what the story is. What I remember is that Jack, Henry, and Carina are following some map to find some stars or something. And there are also ghost pirates hunting them, because the ghost captain wants revenge on Jack Sparrow for killing him.
There are some scenes of action, but honestly they aren’t very good. One thing I praise the film for is the fact that they didn’t ruin the (already dumb) action scenes with a massive amount of shaky-cam. So that’s good. But mostly the action is just shots of a ship with a bunch of tiny men beating each other up. The sets and effects looked very expensive, and Johnny Depp probably wasn’t cheap, either. The sets do look cool, I will say that.
The effects are OK, but kind of shallow. They honestly could have made the same movie if they dialed down the blazing CGI. Henry (my name, yay) wasn’t a very good character. I think Dead Men Tell No Tales decided that Orlando Bloom was getting too old for the character, so they hired a young actor (who talks the same way, wears the same clothes, and has the same haircut and facial hair) to do the part for him. Speaking of Orlando Bloom, he makes a cameo at the end of the movie. Some people in the theater seemed shocked when this happened, so I guess this is the twist (sorry)? Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) also appeared. I’m not sure what the big surprise is, but my best guess is that in a previous movie they died, and are now back. I get that the Orlando Bloom character is cursed to this ship or something, but it wasn’t very cool.
The people I saw it with wanted to watch the end-credits scene, which was a pretty big disappointment. There was just this Hammerhead shark man who made a scary face. I recognized the shark man for two reasons: Disney Infinity commercials, and online stills of the first Pirates movie. So, it’s not worth your time to see that part.
Carina, the main heroine, wasn’t much better than Henry. While she was a fairly strong female character, which is always welcome, she showed very little else than extreme inspiration from countless other English heroines, such as Rey (The Force Awakens), Jin Erso (Rogue One), and Porpentina Goldstein (Fantastic Beasts) to name a few. Seriously. I’m tired of the strong English female character. I have nothing against English people, strong people, or female people (especially), I’m just getting tired of the same person in every movie.
Anyways, I didn’t really care if Henry, Carina, or even Jack died in the countless times they were in peril. I would have been very surprised if they did die, but I didn’t honestly feel invested in any of them.
The villain, Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), is maybe the most interesting character. I get that he’s evil and stuff, but really, how villainous is he? He just wants his revenge. I know that revenge is a bad thing, and I’m not saying he’s a good guy, but does Jack Sparrow really deserve to get away with everything like he does? He’s kind of like a drunk Ferris Bueller who yells a lot, which is a bad thing, because he’s the main character.
There are also tons of pirate extras who just look like a waste of time and money. One of them is played by Paul McCartney in a cameo, which I am ashamed to admit that I missed. Even though I haven’t seen any of the other Pirates movies, I can tell this franchise maybe only has one more movie left in it (or none, as this movie underperformed at the box office). As Chris Klimek said in a review for NPR: “I daresay this is the best fourth sequel to a movie based on a 50-year-old theme park ride.” That’s true, it is. While this wasn’t necessarily an awful movie, there’s really nothing to see here besides special effects and lame jokes. Die hard fans of the series may enjoy it. I just don’t think it’s very good.
Safety Chart:
Violence: 6.5/10- Pirate action. Tons of nameless pirate extras are stabbed, shot, or eaten by sharks. Pirates drown. There is very little blood, except for one stabbing and a scene where Salazar has black blood spilling out of his mouth. Pirate ships catch on fire, crash. Slapstick violence. The characters are almost always in peril. Jack comes close to being beheaded by a guillotine, Carina is threatened with hanging. Skeletons, dead people. None of the violence is bloody or disturbing, there’s just lots of it.
Language: 5/10- D*mn, h*ll. Some other insults and unfunny innuendos made by Jack. People call Carina a witch. Some pirates joke about the word “horologist.” Young kids most likely won’t understand the “horologist” part.
Drinking/Smoking: 6/10- Jack is clearly drunk for almost half of the movie. He drinks a little at the beginning.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is kind of a fun movie. It’s stretching the limit of what the series can really do, but I guess it might be worth it if you like these kinds of movies. If not, then don’t waste your time or money. There are no funny moments, and the action is not that great. I would give this movie a B-. It was extremely meh. The point of the movie isn’t substance. It’s style. And there is plenty of style to go around.
