Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Review

"The Final Adventure?" Like I'm gonna believe that. After a six-year hiatus, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise returns with its newest entry, Dead Men Tell No Tales.

The film's cast sees the return of good ol' Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbosa, played by Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush respectively. Not only that, but Orlando Bloom's Will Turner and Keira Knightly's now Elizabeth Turner return after disappearing from the franchise for a decade.

Beyond the veteran members, new cast members join the fun such as Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario as Henry Turner and Carina Smyth. The villain this time around is Captain Armando Salazar, who is portrayed by Javier Bardem.

I highly suggest checking out the Kids-In-Mind review. I think that this film's okay for kids that are eleven and up, but if you're wondering if kids younger than that are able to go, check out that overview for details.

The Veteran Cast

No Pirates of the Caribbean movie would be complete without Jack Sparrow. It's an Oscar nominated role. If you didn't know already, Johnny Depp received an Oscar nod for portraying the character in the very first Pirates of the Caribbean film, The Curse of the Black Pearl. Some part of me thinks that he should've won, but I guess Sean Penn's role in Mystic River was so good, it managed to beat him out.

Love him or hate him, Johnny Depp is pretty much the face of this entire franchise. When anyone thinks of this franchise, it's Captain Jack Sparrow that instantly comes to mind. Though his quality of acting differs between installments, Johnny Depp gave a serviceable performance as Jack Sparrow. Not his best, but not his worst either. In fact, he sorta easily moves through this film without it seeming like he gave much effort. He didn't necessarily bring anything new to the role. He relies on his own character's tropes. There's his trademark humor, the drunken attitude, and his unpredictable personality. He delivered all those will one fell swoop, but he didn't do much above that. I would like for more reinvention to be brought to his character since the franchise has plans to continue.

Despite being important to the story, Captain Barbosa didn't have a lot to do. Most of his screen time is dedicated to him finding Jack throughout the movie. That's it. It isn't till the end of the second act that he has more importance to the story. Even then, he didn't seem to do much, because he didn't do anything significant. Barbosa seemed more of a plot device than an actual character himself. As for Geoffrey Rush's acting, he did a superb job. Even though his character didn't do much, Geoffrey Rush did good with what his character had in terms of screen time. Whether he was needed in the film or not is a completely different story.

Carina and Henry

Like Barbosa, Carina was just a plot device. She didn't have much of a personality beyond being an astronomer and a woman of science. Kaya Scodelario did a fine job with her acting. She had some funny lines, but she also had some overly feministic lines as well. I didn't quite enjoy that and it seemed very forced the way the lines were delivered. Her main purpose was to find the mcguffin of the film and be a part of the romance between her and Henry. The romance felt so forced and unnecessary. They're obviously set up to be the next Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann of, what begins to look like, another set of three films.

And then there's Will and Elizabeth's son, Henry. Brenton Thwaites easily fits the bill. He actually looks like the combination of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly so props to the casting team of assigning Brenton Thwaites the role.

Much to his credit, Henry acts a lot like Will from the original three films. He's optimistic, good with a sword, and he has a knack for getting himself into troubling situations. Yes, making the character a hundred percent believable to be the son of those two characters was a smart idea, but I think that Henry is a little too much like Will to the point that there isn't much of a difference between the two. Going forward, I would like for a further change to be made for the character where he isn't an exact copy of his father.

Captain Salazar

Anyone who has seen Skyfall knows that Javier Bardem plays a fantastic villain. So part of my excitement for this film was to see if Javier Bardem could play another great villain that was, at the very least, as good as his role in Skyfall. After seeing all the promotional material, I was pretty impressed and excited.

So with that, I had somewhat high expectations for this character. Maybe it was just me, but the character semi delivered. I say "semi" because the guy was pretty hard to understand sometimes. He would often mumble a sentence or his mouth would leak that black goo that was in there, which would distort the sentence. I wonder, what the purpose of having Salazar's mouth full of goo. Was that just to add to the fear factor?

Other than that, I quite enjoyed Captain Salazar. Javier Bardem's acting was on point. The character was given the right amount of backstory and the makeup applied to his face was mighty impressive. I'll be honest though, I was a little bit let down that the villain turned out to be another unkillable, cursed man, who had a crew of equally unkillable men. Not to mention those sharks. Those were some crazy sharks, but some very detailed ones though.

Anyways, of all the characters that were in the film, I probably enjoyed Captain Salazar the best.

The Production Design, Effects, and Score

This film has some amazing production design quality. The ships are stunning. Kudos to the team that designed these ships along with the rest of the buildings. Everything in this film fits into the time period that this film is set in. I was amazed with all the intricate detail that was put into every single thing that's in this film. Salazar's ship, the Silent Mary was a mixed bag for me. When it was sailing in the water it was amazing, but that spell was broken whenever the ship would fold in and out of the water to crush  whatever ship it was trying to destroy. Which leads me to the film's effects.

The effects in this film was so-so. Sometimes they'd blend seamlessly into the film and other times, they'd stick out like a sore thumb because they were so bad.

The zombie sharks and the undead pirate henchmen were the standouts of the poor effects. They didn't look like they weren't fully rendered and were still being worked on. When it came to undead pirates, the beginning films had way superior effects.

The Pirates of the Caribbean score is one of Hans Zimmer's best scores. It's as good as his work in The Lion King, The Dark Knight trilogy, or Interstellar. It's the best example of a big, bombastic score that is absolutely fun to listen to. While Hans Zimmer didn't return to compose the fifth film's score, his protégé, Geoff Zanelli, was responsible for this score.

It doesn't have a noticeable or grander presence, outside of the original theme, but the added themes served their purpose. They're really featured prominently in the first and third half of the film. Much like the film, it takes a back seat in the second act. It's kinda not surprising, because the second half slows down for that period.

Grade C-
(My First C Grade)

I thought that the newest Pirates film is probably the closest, we'll see in the coming ranking, to recapturing the magic of the original film. However, the many characters took time away from developing the new ones, the story slows down in the second half, and the effects and some of the comedy don't quite fit into the film. On a side note, my dad thought it was twenty minutes too long so you may feel that way about the film.

All that said, this is an entertaining film that, if you've seen and/or liked the previous Pirates of the Caribbean films, you'll probably enjoy this newest chapter. If you don't fit either of those requirements, I say that this film is a pass. You can save your money for other films coming soon like Wonder Woman or The Mummy.

For those of you that are going to see this film, I don't think it is worth seeing in 3D. Considering the fact that most of this film is in the dark, wearing the 3D glasses will probably make it even more dark and thus, difficult to see what's going on. I think I had a hard time seeing some things in the film without the glasses so I can't help but imagine that the glasses won't help the situation.

So that's my review of Dead Men Tell No Tales. If you saw it, what did you think of the film? Do you agree with my view of the film, or do you have a different opinion? Write those thoughts into the comments section below and share this with your friends. Thanks for reading, I'm the Film Fanatic, bye-bye.