Well, folks, they did it: they made another Pirates movie 😛 It’s exactly what you’d expect from a fifth movie in a franchise that hasn’t seen a new movie in SEVEN YEARS. But, still…it was about *pirates*, and who doesn’t love pirates?!
THE BLURB:
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.
WHAT WORKED:
Johnny Depp can still play Jack Sparrow. That much is certain. He hasn’t aged a day since the first movie came out, and although his caricature of Jack may be running on fumes (which we’ll discuss later), he does still belong on the screen doing these movies. His crew, likewise, still has it! In spades! As does the crotchety old Geoffrey Rush, who also seems stuck at the perfect cranky age for like the past 20 years.
The locations…my god, the locations. I love the Pirates franchise almost for where its set alone – the jeweled colored water, the ships, the white sandy beaches, the TOWNS…it’s freaking magical. The make-up was also particularly spectacular on our villain, Javier Bardem. On that, they spared no expense. Even the way they made his hair float, like he was always under water was awesome.
Oh! And that makes me think of the fact that I’ve always loved the *magical* aspect of these movies, too…it plays so well into an era of time and exploration where legends, myths, and tall-tales abounded, and people actually BELIEVED them, because so much of the world was unknown. And the swashbuckling is on point, as always. Sword fights, animated corpses with a ship that EATS other ships, battles on the high seas, magical compasses, treasure…it’s all there.
Specific to note in the positive: I really enjoyed the heist at the beginning of the film with Jack and his men pulling an entire BANK through a town, trying to get the gold to fix up their ship and get back on the seas. The final set-piece was also exciting, with a moses-splitting-the-seas setting, and I *loved* the island that glittered and glowed to match the night sky. That was awesome.
It’s also important to say here that it WAS better than At World’s End, and that’s not nothing! It’s not the worst movie of the five! 😛
WHAT DIDN’T:
The new pairing of lovebirds. See…it wasn’t even that much of a point for me until we finally see the end of the flim, and there are Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightly and I’m like “holy shit! Why did we waste a whole movie on these two brand new characters when we could have been back with you guys?!” Not to say that I was every really all THAT attached to their love story, by any means…but then again, Pirates was always at its best with the trio of Jack, Will, and Elizabeth. Even when they basically cut out Will Turner and were pushing Elizabeth and Jack together, that was some weird shit.
Johnny Depp couldn’t carry this movie on his own. The new kids were flat, and Depp was too much of a big cliche. It was a case of fun, pretty things happening, and Ira not really caring at all about it. Don’t get me wrong (I feel like that’s my favorite phrase these days, ha!), the fun stuff was still fun…but always from a distance, and always a liiiittle bit bored.
Javier Bardem was goddamn TERRIFYING in No Country For Old Men. Seriously, go watch him in it if you haven’t. That quarter scene in the convenience shop will twist your stomach into knots…but damnit if he hasn’t sucked in every villain role ever since. At least in the blockbusters. He was terrible in his turn as a Bond villain, and he was terrible as the Spanish pirate-hunter in this movie. MOST of that wasn’t his fault…his character was majorly under-developed. I watched the movie from beginning to end, and I can’t really tell you why he was in the position he was in as a damned soul, what the actual CURSE was that he’d received, and it wasn’t until halfway through that I realized he’d been a pirate-hunter before the damning…but still. It just didn’t work.
So, yeah…despite some successes here and there, this was a tired movie from a tired franchise. It needed someone with more vision and more creativity on the story part of things, perhaps more grounding in some kind of REAL legend. There are so many to choose from! There ARE still stories to tell about pirates and magic, this one just didn’t happen to do a particuarly good job at it. Probably the second-worst movie of the franchise. I liked Black Beard in the last one.
4 out of 10 – watch it for free, or skip it entirely