Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Year: 2017
Director: Joachim Ronning & Espen Sandberg
Starring: Javier Bardem, Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Kaya Scodelario & Brendon Thwaites
Runtime: 129 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 21/08/23
Director: Joachim Ronning & Espen Sandberg
Starring: Javier Bardem, Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Kaya Scodelario & Brendon Thwaites
Runtime: 129 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 21/08/23
Despite being a box office success, On Stranger Tides left a sour taste in the mouths of most that watched it because of its underwhelming plot, few in number and small-scale action sequences, and the complete butchering of the Jack Sparrow character. But it proved to Disney that there was still interest in the franchise from audiences, however it proved difficult to get creatives to sign on to make any more films. Director of the first three films, Gore Verbinski, had no interest in returning, On Stranger Tides director Rob Marshall had signed on to other projects, and even one of the franchise writers Ted Elliott had moved on. If this franchise were to continue it would have to do so with almost entirely new creative leads as only producer Jerry Bruckheimer and writer Terry Rossio were willing to return. The fifth film was then beset with numerous rewrites and production problems which delayed its release until 2017, six years after On Stranger Tides and long after anybody had stopped caring about the franchise. Disney missed the boat, literally. But, considering how much money had been spent on the project, it was released anyway to a critical slaughter and the almost the lowest box office takings of the franchise yet (a still very respectable $795 million, but less than $100 million more than the original film). Proof perhaps, that the franchise should have been sunk to the bottom of the ocean a decade earlier.
Twenty-two years after the events of At World’s End, Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), son of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), has devoted his life to the pursuit of the Trident of Poseidon, an object that will break the curse placed on his father and allow him to return to land to be with him and his mother. However, in order to find it he will require the help of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and has been searching for him for many years. After rescuing a young woman who is also in search of the Trident, Carina (Kaya Scodelario), the pair venture off with Jack to find it. But ghosts from Jack’s past sail the seas in search of him, Captain Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), formerly of the Spanish Armada seeks revenge on Jack for killing him decades prior, and he has Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) hostage, leading him right to Jack, and the Trident.
Twenty-two years after the events of At World’s End, Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), son of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), has devoted his life to the pursuit of the Trident of Poseidon, an object that will break the curse placed on his father and allow him to return to land to be with him and his mother. However, in order to find it he will require the help of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and has been searching for him for many years. After rescuing a young woman who is also in search of the Trident, Carina (Kaya Scodelario), the pair venture off with Jack to find it. But ghosts from Jack’s past sail the seas in search of him, Captain Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), formerly of the Spanish Armada seeks revenge on Jack for killing him decades prior, and he has Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) hostage, leading him right to Jack, and the Trident.
In the UK this film is called Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge. It’s an awful title, and I don’t think I know anyone who likes it, nor do I understand why it was changed from the title used in the United States, Dead Men Tell No Tales. So, from here on, I’m referring to the film as Dead Men Tell No Tales, because I feel it needs at least one good thing going for it. The film is, as evident on it release, quite rubbish. But I would say it’s no more rubbish than On Stranger Tides, and that perhaps the overwhelmingly negative reception the film received was more a case of people genuinely having lost interest in the franchise.
The story is, once again, slightly tighter because the runtime has been trimmed down to a spritelier two hours and ten minutes. This does therefore give the impression of a jolly nautical jaunt than a cross continental cruise that has been the case for most of the Pirates films.
The issue is that this feels like a soft reboot of a story that quite definitively ended around a decade prior, but then on top of that it’s also acting as a reasonably definitive ending for the franchise as a whole. It calls in to question what the point even was, they didn’t even have a workable script off the ground until 2014 and that was nearing to the time Disney wanted the finished film released! I find it such a strange choice that this film’s development continued beyond the early pre-production phases because it seems as though this was a total misfire from the very start.
Henry and Carina are not interesting characters, and they’re almost given the responsibility of taking over the mantle of Will & Elizabeth; but there’s a problem there because the script never fully commits to that, instead placing Jack as the leading man once again, and letting his origin story override the actual plot of the film which was to break the curse placed on Will when he killed Davey Jones. I’m not really sure why Carina is there either, there ends up being a awkwardly wrangled in story with her and Barbossa but that doesn’t come about until the film’s final act anyway and really until that point all she had done was explain how to read a map (which I understand is the point of her character, but that’s literally all she does so why is she given so much screentime with little to no other character development).
I do like the angle of Jack’s past coming back to haunt him, quite literally, in the form of ghosts. But it all starts to feel like a bit of a do-over of Curse of the Black Pearl at that point and it’s never as clever, funny, or fresh.
Salazar could have been a strong villain, but Bardem is chewing the scenery so much it becomes a parody of itself. He’s almost like the anti-Jack Sparrow because he’s so eccentric all the time but he’s evil (sort of, I won’t get caught up in the ethics of piracy or we’ll be here a long time). I’m usually a big fan of Bardem but here he just went completely overboard.
It’s yet another case of a Pirates film trying to do too much of the story thing, without actually having the plot to go with it. It wants to be a sequel to At World’s End, but also be its own thing, and it wants to end the franchise, but also leave it open for the new blood to take over. It’s a mess to put it simply, and it’s no wonder audiences didn’t respond to it.
The story is, once again, slightly tighter because the runtime has been trimmed down to a spritelier two hours and ten minutes. This does therefore give the impression of a jolly nautical jaunt than a cross continental cruise that has been the case for most of the Pirates films.
The issue is that this feels like a soft reboot of a story that quite definitively ended around a decade prior, but then on top of that it’s also acting as a reasonably definitive ending for the franchise as a whole. It calls in to question what the point even was, they didn’t even have a workable script off the ground until 2014 and that was nearing to the time Disney wanted the finished film released! I find it such a strange choice that this film’s development continued beyond the early pre-production phases because it seems as though this was a total misfire from the very start.
Henry and Carina are not interesting characters, and they’re almost given the responsibility of taking over the mantle of Will & Elizabeth; but there’s a problem there because the script never fully commits to that, instead placing Jack as the leading man once again, and letting his origin story override the actual plot of the film which was to break the curse placed on Will when he killed Davey Jones. I’m not really sure why Carina is there either, there ends up being a awkwardly wrangled in story with her and Barbossa but that doesn’t come about until the film’s final act anyway and really until that point all she had done was explain how to read a map (which I understand is the point of her character, but that’s literally all she does so why is she given so much screentime with little to no other character development).
I do like the angle of Jack’s past coming back to haunt him, quite literally, in the form of ghosts. But it all starts to feel like a bit of a do-over of Curse of the Black Pearl at that point and it’s never as clever, funny, or fresh.
Salazar could have been a strong villain, but Bardem is chewing the scenery so much it becomes a parody of itself. He’s almost like the anti-Jack Sparrow because he’s so eccentric all the time but he’s evil (sort of, I won’t get caught up in the ethics of piracy or we’ll be here a long time). I’m usually a big fan of Bardem but here he just went completely overboard.
It’s yet another case of a Pirates film trying to do too much of the story thing, without actually having the plot to go with it. It wants to be a sequel to At World’s End, but also be its own thing, and it wants to end the franchise, but also leave it open for the new blood to take over. It’s a mess to put it simply, and it’s no wonder audiences didn’t respond to it.
There is one moment I got irrationally hung up on which kind of killed the entire thing for me too. Near the start of the film, Henry meets Salazar but Salazar won’t tell him the story of why he wants Jack dead because ‘Dead men tell no tales’ which is a great lead into the title card. However, once we get to the mid-point of the film and Salazar and Barbossa have been together for a little bit, Barbossa asks him why he wants Jack in the first place and Salazar just tells him and we get this whole flashback sequence that shows us exactly what happened. So, if Salazar believes that dead men shouldn’t tell stories, then why is he telling Barbossa!? Maybe I missed something, because I was really struggling to keep my attention on the film for most of the runtime, but really? You’re not only going against something you’ve said earlier in the film, but you’ve now just made the film’s actual title redundant. It seems that dead men do tell tales when the occasion suits them.
Similar to On Stranger Tides, Dead Men Tell No Tales feels small in scale in comparison to the epic nature of Dead Man’s Chest/At World’s End. Also like On Stranger Tides, there’s a distinct lack of large action sequences, and whilst there is a good one early on where Jack tries to rob a bank in the only way that Jack ever could, but they kind of stop there. You get the odd moment here and there but there are too many hurdles put in place to stop Salazar and Jack getting to each other which mean that the few action moments you get are small scale and spaced far apart.
Even the music this time failed to inspire much adventure in me, Geoff Zanelli took over from Zimmer’s work on the franchise and I hate to put a guy down, but it really shows. Zimmer is one of the best composers in Hollywood and the one truly great thing about the Pirates films is his score. Without that, well you get Dead Men Tell No tales apparently.
To the gallows with this one! It deserves nothing more than a short drop and a sharp stop. This franchise should have been sunk years ago but Dead Men Tell No Tales really does provide one of the most production line, cookie cutter, sanitised cinema experiences you could offer which is so disappointing when you look at the franchise’s risky origins. No matter how hard it tries to recapture the magic of The Curse of the Black Pearl, it does nothing but give credence to the fact that this franchise has long overstayed its welcome. If Dead Men Tell No Tales then this must be, hopefully, please, the end of the Pirates of the Caribbean.
Similar to On Stranger Tides, Dead Men Tell No Tales feels small in scale in comparison to the epic nature of Dead Man’s Chest/At World’s End. Also like On Stranger Tides, there’s a distinct lack of large action sequences, and whilst there is a good one early on where Jack tries to rob a bank in the only way that Jack ever could, but they kind of stop there. You get the odd moment here and there but there are too many hurdles put in place to stop Salazar and Jack getting to each other which mean that the few action moments you get are small scale and spaced far apart.
Even the music this time failed to inspire much adventure in me, Geoff Zanelli took over from Zimmer’s work on the franchise and I hate to put a guy down, but it really shows. Zimmer is one of the best composers in Hollywood and the one truly great thing about the Pirates films is his score. Without that, well you get Dead Men Tell No tales apparently.
To the gallows with this one! It deserves nothing more than a short drop and a sharp stop. This franchise should have been sunk years ago but Dead Men Tell No Tales really does provide one of the most production line, cookie cutter, sanitised cinema experiences you could offer which is so disappointing when you look at the franchise’s risky origins. No matter how hard it tries to recapture the magic of The Curse of the Black Pearl, it does nothing but give credence to the fact that this franchise has long overstayed its welcome. If Dead Men Tell No Tales then this must be, hopefully, please, the end of the Pirates of the Caribbean.