Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

This....was actually a lot better than I expected. Considering how awful ''At World's End" was (although I did enjoy "On Stranger Tides") I went in with low expectations. I thought at best it would be mediocre. But they went in a different direction with this one. It feels more like a reboot of the franchise than an actual sequel. But yes, Johnny Depp is still doing the same schtick, and yes, it does wear thin. However the new characters played by Brendon Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario were interesting, and had some surprise connections to other characters that I will not spoil. Also, the villain played by Javier Bardem, he was cool for the first 20 minutes he was onscreen, but sadly, like Depp, he started to feel like a caricature that wore thin. Out of all the "Pirates" villains, he was definetely the weakest.  And there's a flashback sequence with a young Jack Sparrow where it's very obvious that CGI was used on Johnny Depp and it just looks awful. They couldn't have just cast a young actor? The story is the best story of the sequels, and it feels like there was some effort put into it, and it was actually pretty fun. A lot of the dialougue was witty and I did laugh a few times. Considering this is "Pirates 5" it was better than it had any right to be. Nothing will ever match the first one, because the first one was unique. It took something that shouldn't have worked, and not only did it make it work, it made it work well. That's something that will never be able to be repeated, and I agree, these films do need to stop. I think having different writers and directors helped this film. It made sense, wasn't too terribly long, and knew when it needed to give more, or give less. That's something that the other sequels haven't been able to accomplish. Is it worth paying full price? No, but it wouldn't hurt to go see it on a $5 Tuesday if you have that or waiting for a discount theater. 

Grade: B     8/10     3.5/5 stars