By Emilio Frenk.
Directors: Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg
Cast: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario, Kevin McNally, Golshifteh Farani, David Wenham, Stephen Graham, Bruce Spence, Juan Carlos Vellido, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley.
Rating: Poor.
Norwegian directors, Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, who directed “Bandidas” starring Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz bring “Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales”, the fifth installment of the Disney Franchise that started in 2003 and compared to the previous one this is a better film but still the results are unfortunate.
The movie is centered in the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) a drunk pirate who is approached by Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) who happens to be son of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) is seeking for Captain Sparrow´s help for the quest of the trident of Poseidon that is capable of breaking any curse that is in the oceans.
As usual Sparrow is not interested but than he agrees on helping Henry and they will do it with the help of Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) an astronomer who is being charged with heresy by the British Society.
The major problem they will face is Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), a pirate hunter who wants to seek revenge against Jack Sparrow for taking something that it was very valuable to him and he will do it with the help of Sparrow´s nemesis Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush).
Now Captain Jack Sparrow with Henry Turner and Carina Smyth will work with Sparrow´s mates are in a race against time on obtaining the trident before Salazar and Barbossa do and that way curse of the seas is broken once and for all.
“Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men No Tales” had the major problem of being too repetitive and having action sequences that were an exact same carbon copy of the previous films.
The other problem that I saw in the film was that characters didn´t had obstacles in order to reach their goals and for moments I felt that everything was to easy for them.
This time the screenplay was written by Jeff Nathanson, which credits include “Catch Me If You Can”, “Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and “The Terminal” all of them directed by Steven Spielberg. Here the problem is that Nathanson didn´t raise the stakes to high with his characters and the film was flat by moments.
It had an interesting start with the 1st Act of the Film but everything went downhill after that. I felt that both Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg directing was too flat and the action sequences were to fake as well. There were filled with tons of CGI and when some of the sequences were trying to make an effort of being funny were just not that.
In the positive side there were moments with Johnny Depp´s character that were fun to watch. Without a doubt this is Depp´s most iconic character of his career and landed him his first Academy Award Nomination back in 2004. Is a fun character to watch despite the movies from the second installment got worse.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of The Black Pearl” was a great movie directed by Gore Verbinski and had the necessary elements of being an enjoyable film. The problem is after “Dead Man´s Chest (Second Installment) is that all the movie from the franchise got worse and it´s a shame because this movies have enjoyable characters but everything was still the same and repetitive.
Compared to “On Stranger Tides”, “Dead Man No Tells” is a better film and has a better story but the problem was the lack of obstacles of the characters in order to reach their goals.
Javier Bardem´s performance as Captain Salazar was very good and his CGI was very well made. In fact he is one of the best things with the film.
The other thing that I was surprised was the third act that it was very well executed and had a very good ending.
Just I hope that this is the last Pirates of the Caribbean film or if they do another one please let it be original and with a better screenplay.
Despite of the efforts the filmmakers try to do with “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dean Man No Tales” I cannot recommend it due to the weak story and direction.