I am a big PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN fan. I love the first movie. And I really like the second and third movies. I completely agree with C. Robert Cargill when he said that the trilogy that is like the modern-day INDIANA JONES. They’re both over-the-top B-action films with an iconic character that a generation latched onto. The first film is loved by the majority of people while the second and third are mixed with some loving and some hating them. Then both series got an unnecessary 4th film that were kind of meh. Now PIRATES has a 5th film. I’m happy to say that it’s much better than ON STRANGER TIDES.
What didn’t work for me in the 4th PIRATES movie was Jack Sparrow does not make a good protagonist. He’s a fantastic supporting character, but don’t make him the main hero of the film. DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES recognized this and decided to make 2 newcomers the main focus of the movie. There’s still a lot of Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa, but we’re mainly following Henry Turner, son of Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner, and Carina Smyth.
Even if you haven’t seen the first 3 films it does a great job of establishing how important this is for the main character. I wouldn’t really say this has sequel baggage. It does a great job of standing on its own legs. Although, really, this is basically the same plot as the previous films. Bad guy is angry at Jack Sparrow. Jack needs to find McGuffin to stop bad guy. Other people also want McGuffin for their own goals. They do shorten it up a bit. The movie’s only a little over 2 hours long when all the other films were at least 2 hours and 40 minutes. It shaved off a lot of the fat.
The story’s been done before but now we get a couple new characters to follow. They do tie into the first trilogy with who these characters are. But it definitely is a step in a direction I would like to see this series take in moving away from Jack Sparrow and all these established characters. More on that later. While these newbies do tend to get overshadowed by Depp and Rush, they still do a great job. There is still a lot of focus on Jack and Barbossa, but the story is still Henry’s and Carina’s. I enjoyed their characters enough to care. And by the end of the movie I felt something. Definitely something the 4th movie missed.
Action is one of the series strong points. DEAD MEN doesn’t disappoint with brilliantly staged and set up set pieces. While there isn’t really too much threat of characters not making it out alive in (most) of the series, it still manages to be very creative and entertaining. It does hearken to the old days of the silent film physical comedies stars like Chaplin. Even though a lot of the set pieces are flooded with CGI, there’s is quite a bit of practical physical comedy within these crazy romps.
Just like in previous films, DEAD MEN is beautiful. The visual design is impressive as ever. The special effects are great in most aspects of the film. Which kind of sucks because in all 4 of the previous ones the effects were fantastic all around. The villain characters all had amazing effects but a lot of the extra bits didn’t feel like they had the same care put into them. And there’s a scene with 3 dead sharks that looks pretty bad. And the 3D didn’t help at all…
Speaking of which, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE IN 3D! This was really hard for me. Most movies that play in IMax will have scene that are filmed in the larger IMax ratio. I mentioned this when reviewing GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. But DEAD MEN was filmed entirely on IMax. So the whole movie has the larger 1.9:1 ratio instead of the standard 2.35:1. So if you don’t see it in IMax, you’re missing part of the shots, but if you see it in IMax you have to watch it in 3D. And this movie is shot way too dark for the 3D to really work. I’m usually really good with 3D movies, but this one I noticed was pretty bad.
What I really want for this series to do is to move beyond Jack Sparrow. Or at least have less of him. I still like him as a character, but with so many legends and myths that surround pirates and the seas I feel keeping it with Jack can kind of narrow the focus. The world these films have built is fascinating and rich. I would love to keep returning to see what we can explore in the future.
DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES doesn’t quite make it to the greatness of the original trilogy. It definitely sails laps around the previous entry, though. And with a much shorter run time and being a somewhat stand alone film, it’s much easier to be an in-and-out film for those who want fun pirate action without having to sit through the intimidating length of the previous films. I proudly own the first 3 films. I have no desire to buy the 4th. I will be buying DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES later on.
7.5/10
Review also available HERE
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