Friday, June 9, 2017

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man Tell No Tales Review

So I finally got to see the 5th and completely unnecessary installment in the once popular and epic Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise titled Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man Tell No Tales
 
Official epic artwork poster
 
       Let me start by saying that prior to watching this film, I was a fan of the Pirates Of The Caribbean series up until the third film. The first Pirates Of The Caribbean is hands down the best one of the series as it was fresh, exciting, and had a hilarious performance from Johnny Depp, which not only propelled him to full blown stardom in terms of being a sex symbol for ladies, but earned him a well deserved Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. What was so special about the first Pirates film, is not only did it leave you exhausted like the theme park ride that inspired the movie, it gave audiences a thrill ride that they would feel good about ultimately and leave them pumped when it was over. Although the second Pirates Of The Caribbean movie never felt as good as the first one as it was more stretched out and overly long, it was still engaging because the audience became connected with the three central characters in the story such as Depp's drunk and clumsy Captain Jack Sparrow, Kiera Knightley's Elizabeth, and Orlando Bloom's Will Turner. At World's End in many audiences eyes felt like the real ending of the series as the storyline not only felt all over the place, the action was still compelling with the main characters arcs all coming to a beautiful closure with Will and Elizabeth getting married during the climatic battle sequence and Sparrow demonstrating by the end of the trilogy that as deeply flawed of a character that he comes off as being, he's a loyal friend when needed and has a good heart. The fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean titled On Stranger Tides was not only completely unnecessary but just awful. The problem with that film is not so much that the story continued after the ending of At World's End, but the audience doesn't care about any of the characters in that film outside of Captain Jack Sparrow despite the film being shorter and tighter paced than the previous sequels. The problem that every sequel after the third Pirates movie has is outside of Depp's character, the audience doesn't connect with a trio of characters that carries the whole film and the movies lack the heart and thrills of the first trio of films. Having now seen the newest Pirates Of The Caribbean film, I can honestly say without any hesitation that it's officially time to put the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise to bed indefinitely.
 
      Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man Tell No Tales desperately tries to recapture the magic and glory days of its earlier installments, but still lacks the fundamental driving force behind the first three that made them connect with audiences which is that despite their flaws, they possessed heart. Despite the films being excessively longer with each installment, you still care about where the story would go with Jack, Will, and Elizabeth's adventures and dearly missed them both with the 4th installment and ultimately with Dead Man Tell No Tales. The story for the new film had potential to be great, but severely underwhelms with its execution with Captain Jack Sparrow searching for the trident of Poseidon while being pursued by an undead sea Captain and his crew. With a premise like that, one would think that the new film could be as compelling with the first three had they gave it the proper execution and surrounded Jack Sparrow with strong and likeable characters. The problem is that the main characters that Sparrow surrounds himself with in the film feel like poor attempts at recapturing the magic and chemistry that Sparrow had with Elizabeth and Will. While the characters of Harry and Carina are not exactly terrible characters, they lack the proper development and smart writing to make them stand out as being proper replacements. They merely seem like attempts to help repeat the extravagant set pieces of the original and people the audience can relate to and cling on for emotional support. To put to bed a question that's clearly on the mind of many fans of the franchise, especially the first three, the new film is indeed an improvement over the 4th installment but not by much. The magic of the first trio of films has faded and everything for the most part feels like a cash in attempt to prolong the longevity of the franchise when clearly it already had it's peak. Johnny Depp's performance doesn't feel as fleshed as it once was and feels more cashed in as if he's phoning it in for a paycheck as he acts drunk throughout the film. Geoffrey Rush gives a reliable performance as Barbossa with a surprise yet poorly developed plot twist involving his character that comes near the end of the story. Javier Bardem does the best job he can as Captain Salazar even though he doesn't feel fully fleshed out as a villain and severely underused. As hard as Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario try to be Kiera Knightley and Will Ferrall, they just don't come off as being as appealing as those two were in their roles. The film also severely lacks the sense of grandeur that made the original three so massive in scope, giving them an epic feel. The film feels like a case of unfreshed leftovers, that one puts on high in the microwave in hopes of capturing the sensational taste of trying the food for the first time after being cooked but it just feels in the end like the leftovers have been in the fridge for too long. That analogy is the best way to describe the new Pirates Of The Caribbean as it never manages to capture the magic of the first three and while it has a more interesting storyline than it's predecessor, it's never fully fleshed out and neither is it's villain played brilliantly by Bardem, who gives the paycheck club a nice classy feel to it. It can be suggested that the key to going into this film and enjoying it is to go in expecting nothing so that way you can be pleasantly surprised in return. While that logic isn't necessarily bad, the question arises with the type of franchise that Pirates Of The Caribbean is, should one have to resort to limiting their expectations in order to enjoy what's supposed to be a blockbuster epic? That's not the fault of the audience but the fault of the filmmakers for failing to make the film on par with the quality of the first three films, and recreating some of the magic of those movies. While nothing can ever be as great as the first Pirates Of The Caribbean flick, the second and third film despite being underrated show that there was enough story to draw the franchise out if needed.
 
      Overall, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a severe disappointment for fans expecting a quality sequel in this franchise, and signifies that the once great Pirates franchise is way past it's expiration date and needs to be put to bed permanently and not resurrected. The switching of directors throughout the franchise form Gore Verbinski who helmed the first three to Rob Marshall who did On Stranger Tides to Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg directing Dead Man Tell No Tales, didn't actually benefit the franchise at all since Verbinski left but rather helped to bring down the quality of the films. While the art-set decoration of the films along with the costume design remain stellar along with the cinematography, the heart of the franchise has faded along with Hans Zimmer's epic score that's been replaced by a generic one that only has it's truly good moments when it repeats the best parts of Hans music from the previous films. If one is a die hard fan of the series, they may enjoy Dead Men Tell No Tales for that specific reason and bypass much of the films glaring flaws. However, if one is a fan of the first three and felt that the story was finished with At Worlds End and disliked On Stranger Tides, their opinion won't change much with the newest installment. As a whole the film is mildly entertaining at best but is an installment in the franchise that is unnecessary and should be quickly forgotten after watching it. Not even the glorified and over exaggerated cameos of Will Turner and Elizabeth are not enough to save the film from being an underwhelming sequel as their cameos are too brief and feels like the filmmakers and studio saying "Here, they're back, you guys happy now?" Getting some extra backstory on Jack Sparrow is noble but an unnecessary move to try and make a tired out character great again. Sometimes the audience doesn't need to know everything about a character like Jack Sparrow to understand where he comes from in the case of this film, it was fun seeing a young CGI Johnny Depp. Dead Men Tell No Tales is ultimately a failed attempt at bringing the franchise back to it's glory days, and shows how a movement needs to be created that demands this franchise be put to bed and not resurrected ever again.
 
                                                                                                                                                  6/10
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