The Pirates of the Caribbean films have a novel unlife at this juncture: expensive, bloated, exhausting, and yet absurdly profitable, they seem curiously immune to critical barbs and pop cultural expiration dates. (Jack Sparrow has been sashaying around for 14 years now.)
The fifth and most recent chapter, Dead Men Tell No Tales is the shortest entry yet—just a bit over two hours—and while the Pirates formula is as wobbly as ever, it somehow stays upright enough to entertain, unevenly but with occasional glints of that old giddiness and wonder.
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As for the plot, does it really matter? There’s another maritime artifact in play—the trident of Posiedon himself—and another fantastically realized supernatural villain—the cursed Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), a pirate-hunting Spanish captain who, along with his damned crew and literally ravenous ship, lingers on in fiery undeath. (Like Davy Jones from prior chapters, Salazar and company are showcases for some jaw-dropping visual effects.) There’s also an obligatory bland romance between a pair of star-crossed pretty white people (Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario), a trope on which the series keeps insisting, despite the fact that its obvious main attraction (and protagonist by default) is the anti-heroic Captain Sparrow (Johnny Depp).
Viewers who enjoy the Pirates films will likely find this outing better paced and more polished than the prior Stranger Tides, which increasingly looks like the franchise’s orphan child. Those who had enough of Sparrow’s antics and the series’ weaknesses (confusing plots, fatiguing action, hokey one-liners) four films ago will have no reason to endure Dead Men. To its credit, however, the fifth entry boasts an appealing meta-textual canniness, acknowledging that Jack’s shtick has grown wearisome to even his friends and that the age of magic, curses, and sea gods must eventually come to an end.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales opens Friday, May 26 in wide release.
