Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017): Movie Review.

It has been six years since the last, fourth, Pirates. Even though, this new film is in great demand, interest in those movies has not faded in six years that much. This time, Captain Jack Sparrow must again find the ancient artifact, the Trident of Poseidon, to save his own skin, again. All it looks like one story over and over again. And it doesn't necessarily have fresh take on it, all that magical abracadabra with Poseidon, and screenwriters trying to explain everything with science, even making one of the main heroins a scientist of a great mind, which actually reminds of a dump way of "celebrating" sexism, condemning it of cause, but reminding of a terrible treatment of women too often for it to bother on the fifth time them saying "witch" in the movie.

So what happened with Pirates new installment? Despite the prayers for a better film, the fifth one didn't become any better, but worse as a motion picture. And I am a little disappointed not only with that, but with the lack of that stylish Pirates tone that was in first two movies. Of cause Captain Jack is yet again funny and entertaining, but even though in first two he was a cherry on the top of a cake, not the cake itself. Now he is the main reason these movies are being made. And it is the first major problem with Dead Men Tell no Tales - it is imitating what was very best about "The Curse of the Black Pearl" and transfers it into the much worse script with no special Captain Jack Sparrow "plan", because he is morally done in the film and gives up on everything. Which leads to the second thing I didn't like. It is the characters treatment. Giving the fans all they want is not the way to make a good story, especially when screenwriters try to make us care about some of the characters we haven't seen for ten years like Will Turner. His curse of being Dutchman's Captain is one of the main reasons driving the story in the film, and there is no much connection, emotional at least with the two last Pirates movies. The story picks up forgetting to set up that emotional connection, pretending that we already must care, because "why all other four flicks were made for?". And the third and last is that this movie completely lacked any respect to at least first three films in the franchise. Many details about characters and events, that took place before in Pirates universe, that I know, were changed to serve the story better, which destroys the lore. The last nail in the coffin of redeeming the franchise.

The new movie completely stopped the franchise from being what it was, there are no way, that it can step on the right trail again and follow greatness of first two movies. Johnny Depp is now older and older to play Captain Jack Sparrow, and those movies will be made only if he is back to play his famous role.

There are good things too to be mentioned about Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The movie has its flaws but it is more or less enjoyable, for other people, rather then me. I criticize it too much, because I know the difference between the good "Pirates" movie and the bad. It is not necessarily must be a huge-scale action movie with unexplainable magic stuff. Instead, it can be something more practical, with no wasted money on needless CGI effects. I never asked for a new bad movie just for the sake of seeing more from those characters I love. A good film would have changed a lot in this franchise.

Anyway, the story is quite solid, despite the fact, that the screenplay didn't create needed emotional connection. The story threats already known characters poorly, but it sets up all the reasons, why the action is happening, well. I can say the reasons, why this script is bad, but there are good jokes and character development on the surface. There have been only three of all the characters, who were in all five films. They are, of cause Captain Jack Sparrow, Joshua Gibbs, Jack's loyal first-made and Captain Barbossa, played by Jeffrey Rush. His character was always a hidden jewel of this franchise. Of cause he was just for a couple of seconds in the second film, but he did appear in all movies in the franchise. I write it, because he has been given a lot more depth then ever. He was always just a bad person, a pirate, and now, suddenly we learn about his past. And in the perspective of the whole franchise, it seemed a little out of place for this character, he was absolutely great without any depth, except his great love for the "Pearl". And yet again, it is the way, where the story in the fifth movie goes, and how it treats already known characters. It worked exactly 50/50 in this film, sometimes violating the essence of the characters, but giving them some development instead.

The new main leads played by Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario are a recreation of whom Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann were for the first movies. But it looks more like a wrong decision, because they didn't have even near that depth and character build as previous generation. And the story and the screenplay for the first movie was way better then in "Dead Men Tell No Tales". And as for the villain. Javier Bardem was really good. But what else you would have expected from an Oscar-winning actor. Overall, the image of this movie is even more blur than even the previous film had. It overreacted about fanservice and totally took a wrong direction to lead the whole franchise into darkness. There are already ways for another movie, but if it's going to be as this one then there is a problem of not seeing the situation clearly, that the health of the franchise depends on good quality of the movie at first.