PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES ■ Dead franchises tell some tales
There’s no denying that while the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies have increased in big-budget spectacle, they’ve declined in quality since the release of the original, THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL. While sequels DEAD MAN’S CHEST and AT WORLD’S END retained some of the magic of the original, ON STRANGER TIDES left a lot to be desired for PIRATES fans.
Fast-forward to the latest sequel, DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES, and Disney has clearly taken this to heart. While it doesn’t always hit the right notes, DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES adapts the formula of what worked for THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL. There’s plenty of action. Some decent humour. An iconic villain. It leans a little too heavily into the darker parts at times, but still doesn’t come close to the implied hanging of children in AT WORLD’S END.
To go into the story would give things away, and if you can avoid the trailers before seeing this one, you’ll be in for some great fan-service surprises. One of the better decisions for DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES is to relegate Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) back to a supporting role. This works better on paper than in execution, but mostly because Sparrow’s dialogue isn’t as quotable, and he comes across more like a sad clown than ever before.
Sparrow’s stake in the story isn’t as tightly entwined as some of the other players, and DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES suffers from too many competing storylines. One in particular could have been cut without it changing the trajectory of the plot, and given that there are around half a dozen storylines at play in the shortest PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movie, to date, it feels unnecessarily convoluted in parts.
That said, DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES wastes little time sailing forward and the plot moves at a fantastic pace. There are some genuinely clever action set pieces (even if directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg are a little too fond of slow-motion shots), and the villainous Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) effortlessly bests lacklustre baddie Blackbeard (Ian McShane) from ON STRANGER TIDES. Towards the end of the movie, there are some poignant emotional pay-offs, too, which helps to lift DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES above its weaker parts.
DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES isn’t the rousing runaway success that THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL was, but it’s a necessary return to form for a reportedly soft-rebooted franchise that got lost in the Seven Seas with ON STRANGER TIDES. It’s impressive on the big screen, and great in 3D, too.
