– A Convoluted plot, with some high points

THE Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has somehow made it to its fifth film, and based on the ending of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, there are sure to be more films to come. Five films in, with more on the way, and yet I wonder if there are other people who have realized that, with the exception of Calypso/Tia Dalma (played by Naomie Harris) in the earlier films, a fully-realized character of colour, native to the West Indies is yet to be presented, despite the entire franchise being set in the Caribbean in a time when people of African, Amerindian, and Mixed descent were swarming in the region. However, that is a conversation for another day. Today we will talk about Dead Men Tell No Tales and ponder over why it is not as good as its predecessors.
First, the plot is woefully convoluted. The film opens with Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), son of Will and Elizabeth Turner, who is seeking the help of Jack Sparrow to break his father’s curse, which keeps him chained to the ghost-ship, The Flying Dutchman. Henry then has an encounter with the evil Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) who exists in an undead state because of the mechanizations of a young Jack Sparrow. Meanwhile, Jack Sparrow is shown womanizing and robbing (aren’t characters supposed to change over the course of time?), and escaping the soldiers of St. Maarten by dragging an entire building across the island (yes, it is as ludicrous as it sounds). During this chase, he meets Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), an astronomer/horologist (source of some of the film’s actually funny moments) who is on her own quest to find out who she is and where she comes from. Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) also appears and offers to lead Salazar to Jack Sparrow. Eventually, all of these characters decide that the lost magical Trident of Poseidon is necessary to their individual motives and they all set out across the sea to find it. Needless to say, the plot is packed with too many characters and too many happenings, and therefore a lot of the characters and relationships are not as well developed as they could have been and the storyline itself does not keep the interest the way in which the earlier films did. I mean, I am still wondering if Golshifteh Farahani as the sea-witch actually needed to be in this film. And I like Goshifteh Farahani. Maybe some of the film’s problems started at the very beginning – with the screenplay – where, if tighter edits and better choices were made, a slimmer but more effective plot, utilizing a handful of necessary characters, would have emerged.
There are too many gimmicks in places where good movie moments should have been inserted instead. I have already highlighted the building being pulled by horses through the streets, but there are also other things. Carina’s relationship with another character, for instance, while revelatory, seems like way too much of a coincidence, especially since she is left to unearth this relationship through happenstance when she happens to look at a certain character’s tattoo at exactly the right moment. It just seems a bit too absurd that of all the people in the whole wide world, she would just coincidentally find the one she was looking for by chance. Then there are the zombie sharks. Yes, zombie sharks, which need no further explanation. There is also the fact that some parts of Dead Men Tell No Tales reminds one of Dead Man’s Chest: Jack Sparrow fights an undead captain and his crew, who cannot step foot on land, by journeying to various locales in order to find a mythical artifact that can save him.
There are redeeming qualities to the film. The visuals of the sea, the exploding ships and the magic of the trident, are beautiful to watch. There are also some good jokes on occasion. In terms of performances, Geoffrey Rush and maybe Kaya Scodelario are the ones who stand out. Of course, the reappearance of Kiera Knightley as Elizabeth and her reunion with Will is one of the high-points of the film. But, overall, Dead Men Tell No Tales does not come close to the best in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.