Setting Sail with Jack once again: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales film review7/12/2017 Setting Sail for the Caribbean with Captain Jack!!! After setting sail, 6 years ago, Captain Jack Sparrow is back with a whole new and similar adventure. He is not alone! With the likes of the returning Orlando Blooms’ Will Turner and Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Swann to Geoffrey Rushes’ Captain Hector Barbossa and the new comer Javier Bardems’ Captain Salazar, this film is packed with lots of action, character back story and the same old Johnny Depp we saw almost 15 years ago. You will finally get to see how Jack became the Captain of the Black Pearle and more. Outside of his backstory, the audience will feel a lot for these characters, get dropped into the action set pieces, and how this story and film adaption feels all too similar to the others. While other installments did very well in its first weekend, this installment didn’t live up to its expectations in the states as the company hoped. With two superhero movies bookmarking the beginning and ending of the month of May, there wasn’t much hope in Jack Sparrow and company for growth. This movie did gain major moneys in international markets rather than the states. Action “Jack”son Sparrow!!!! Now, what would a Pirates movie be without action and adventure to it! Right off the bat, Jack resurfaces, post hangover, causing all kinds of destruction. These action set pieces can make or break audiences on how believable it may look on screen. After we open to a key scene with Will and Henry Turner, which is very similar to Will’s promise to his father in the 3rd film, we find ourselves watching Jack do what all pirates love to do, steal. After a booze filled Jack suffered through a ridiculous robbery, his fall from grace lands him right into a tavern. Once he gives away something so precious to Jack, all out hell breaks loose. Once freed from this devilish place, Captain Salazar and company uncontrollably reek all kinds of havoc throughout the seas. Starting his quest on revenge. At this point, the action never really stops from here. With action on the high seas, it gives more depth to the pirate’s movies to make it more believable with their ship battles and chases. However, outside of the first few battle scenes, the rest of the film falls flat on how the action set pieces are. Compared to the other action set pieces in the other movies, outside of the beginning few pieces, the rest in this movie mess with the pacing and flow of the film that you would want to ask for your money back. Granted, it is great to see lots of action in these pirates movies, but if you are doing these action set pieces just for action without story context, meaning or to move the film along, than by all means geek out with this film. What would a pirate’s movies without sword fights! Throughout the fourteen long years, this franchise seen some astonishing, amazing and spectacular sword fights and some are terrible, atrocious, grotesque ones. This might have been the only Pirates of the Caribbean film that doesn’t have a lot of sword fighting featured in it. I do like the fight scene at the end, but the others in this movie are okay, at best, compared to the other sword fights featured in the other 4 films. The pacing, staging and believably of all the sword fights in this film doesn’t have a lot juice and/or flow to piece together the story at hand. Granted, they are awesome to watch and are very thrilling, but if they are just placed there without structure or meaning, than it is lost. Story Time with Jack Sparrow! Whoever has seen this films trailer know that we finally get a strong enough backstory of Jack Sparrow in terms of how he came to be a leader and a captain. It seem to be more apparent, at the start of this film, nothing really sets this above or apart from other entries; however, it is easier to sit through from its story structure than the second two. Backstory work most of the time when it comes to big budget franchises, I.E Underworld, Resident Evil and etc.; however, I think the Jack Sparrow backstory in this film was average at best. I am glad they didn’t start the film with his backstory. I rather not have it rammed down our throats first thing. The story of Jack and his beginnings was probably one of the best parts of the movie. It is more believable, drops you right into his world and it has more thought than most “How he became” type of backstory. They also did a great thing and didn’t just throw it in there haphazardly, but place it where it works the best. If they did the same thing with other character, Hector, than the payoff at the end would not be meaningful at all, but only to confuse its audience. Outside of his beginnings, Jack and the rest of the crew have more that they can handle when Captain Salazar is finally freed from the Triangle of Hell (Devil’s Triangle). I really like the character Captain Salazar and his purpose to end Jack Sparrow to fulfil his revenge, but that is every villain’s motive in the previous installments. Javier Bardem plays the villainous undead Spanish pirate punisher, Armando Salazar, who inherits the plot functions by Barbossa, Jones and Blackbeard. When it comes to the plot, it is all too similar to its roles. They all are hunting for the mystic artifact, the Trident of Poseidon, which holds the power to break all curses set forth by the sea accumulated over all previous films. There are many plots and betrayals, pirate zombies, sea monster, ghost ship and even zombie sharks featured through this film as well as bouncing around ships that factors into the story with purpose. Eventually, everyone is racing for this trident, Jack and Barbossa, along with Henry Turner and Carina. They are all pursued by Captain Armando Salazar and his undead crew to take their vengeance on Jack for years of horror and torture. This movie did one thing right and it fixes the key mistake on the previous installment, that realizing that Jack is not a lead character. When you watch this film, the normal people, like Henry and Carina, are grounds to run this story. To the story Jack is just a comic relief and helps move the story of Henry and Carina. Unfortunately, they are not Will and Elizabeth, but they move the story along in a way that makes it work for the audience watching this installment. Outside of figuring out why the first three movies worked so well, Dead Men Tell No Tales kind of feels like someone is remembering how to make a pirates movie by memory, but without understanding how those piece fit together. Throughout the years, Johnny Deep has portrayed lots of iconic characters, but Jack Sparrow was the most of all. In this film though, he is a parody of that earlier character, just cashing a paycheck, dried up, and not as funny as the first two installments with no interesting arc even through the movie gives him his own origin story. If you were to put a checklist together of things a Pirates movie might need, Dead Men Tell No Tales, would hands down technically have them. However, the film only works when those items are fresh and work like a well oil machine. The bank heist in the beginning is a fun one at that with a good enough budget, but the big climax of this film contains no sword fights, no ship battles and having characters hanging off a CGI anchor. These appear sporadically in this film; furthermore, they don’t add any stakes because most audiences lost interest in the characters long ago. No Rest for the Pirates! As stated in the final trailer of this film, “The Final Adventure…” it is solely depending on this to be the last film of the pirates’ franchise, outside of maybe making this a two part finale. All in all this pirates’ movie works to some caliber of a film, but when you place this film inside the rating timeline, it just barely beats out On Strangers Tide. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies had good thing on focusing with the stories of Jack, Will and Elizabeth and how enjoyable to see it play out in all three films. What really makes this film work on the basic level is the flow and plot of the story and how some of the characters react to each other. Some action set pieces, interactions with each character, outside of Jack, the returning and new characters and story are among the things I really like about this film. In my opinion, if you are looking for a great blockbuster to go watch this summer (2017), I would wait for digital/Blu-Ray/DVD/UHD, if you have seen any of those previous Pirates’ film. If you are a Johnny Depp and Jack Sparrow fan, then by all means watch this film. The Film Corners Grade: C- (Film rating 45%)
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 29% (July 2017) https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pirates_of_the_caribbean_dead_men_tell_no_tales Total Over All Gross (Worldwide): $734,189,216 http://pro.boxoffice.com/movie/22493/pirates-of-the-caribbean-dead-men-tell-no-tales |
Brandon
Films have been in my blood coming into the new millennium. As a little kid, I was always fascinated about films and how they came to be. Inside the last decade, I turned my attention to reviewing these films, for the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Archives
March 2020
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