So….it seems that the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has been on a bit of a decline in
recent years, but after taking a bit of a break, getting new directors on board, and
having a surprisingly kind of promising marketing campaign, at least to me, Pirates of the Caribbean
5 has finally landed, 6 years after the last.
So, let’s talk about it.
*clip* And this review will be entirely non-spoilers,
cuz there are really only one or two spoiler-y things you can talk about in this movie and
I really don’t have a lot to say about them.
So let’s not beat around the bush.
Is Pirates 5 a triumphant potential end to this franchise or just the next step of decreasing
quality for this franchise.
Well….it’s a bit in the middle, probably more towards the lower end of that spectrum.
Pirates 5 is nowhere near the first film, it’s quite a bit better than the fourth,
and I’d say it’s just a bit below the second and third.
It has some terrible things in it, and it has some amazing things in ti.
Firstly, the cast.
Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, look, I don’t think he can ever recapture the charm of the
performance from the first film.
THis time around, there are some really good Jack Sparrow-ish moments, but there are also
quite a few moments where I’m reminded why I’m starting to get a little sick of this
character.
Still, again, enjoyed him more in this than I did in the last one.
Javier Bardem is actually really good as Salazar.
The character doesn’t have a ton to him, he’s just a guy who doesn’t like Pirates
who wants revenge, that’s about it.
But as far as villains go, these movies always do pretty well in terms of design and intimidation
factor, and this is no exception.
I always like Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa in these movies, he just seems like he’s always
having so much fun with them, so i really enjoyed him here.
Brenton Thwaites as Henry Turner was….the definition of fine.
He’s not terrible, he’s likeable enough, but nothing stood out about the performance
at all for me.
You could’ve replaced him with any number of kind bland generic handsome guys and nothing
would’ve changed.
Now as far as Kaya Scodelario as Carina Smyth, I usually don’t like specifically saying
really bad things about a certain actor, but I’m sorry, this girl is terrible in this
movie.
The acting goes from passable to actually laughably bad at points.
And not only that, but her character for most of the film was really unlikeable too.
That combination made me kind of wish the story would move along whenever it stopped
for a scene with her.
I always love Gibbs in theses movies, he’s great here, the crew members are as good as
they were before, and Orlando Bloom seemed kind of like he was phoning it in a bit for
when he was there, but admittedly it was nice to see him after that character being gone
from this franchise for so long.
Other good things about this film, the action is pretty great and entertaining as you’d
expect from this franchise at this point.
Another franchise staple is that the music is of course truly phenomenal.
The direction and cinematography, while I wouldn’t say on the level of Gore Verbinski,
but it’s a pretty looking movie.
The visual effects for the most part are pretty fantastic, there are a few green screen moments
that aren’t great, but most of this is stellar.
There are fun set pieces and the costumes and all that are great.
Also, we have to talk about CGI de-aging, cuz I’m starting to get kind of scared.
The best example yet is definitely Kurt Russell in Guardians 2, but this.
This is pretty insane.
When young Jack first talks it’s kind of jarring, but besides that it’s pretty damn
good, and it really impressed me.
There are also some surprisingly funny moments.
A lot of the jokes don’t really land btu I burst out laughing two or three times.
And the emotional moments, some don’t work really but some are kind of nice.
Aagina, no spoilers, but the only one that kind of did something for me was the very
last scene of the film, where I was like, ok, that’s kind of sweet.
Now besides all that, this movie has a lot of problems.
The main problem with this film is definitely the plot.
The plot is really abd.
Not only is it very similar to the other films in a lot of ways, but the script also is really
lazy, and/or some parts of it were just cut out entirely.
Because there are plot devices that show up in this movie that are beyond contrived or
come out of nowhere or straight up make no sense at all.
There were a couple of moments in here where I found myself asking, how?
How does this happen now?
What is going on?
The movie also gets very repetitive at the start, because every character seems to give
you the same exposition several times over.
Take a shot in the first act of this movie every time you hear something about the trident
of poseidon being impossible to find or this girl being a witch.
Spoilers, you will die.
The movie’s also really predictable, like there was not a single surprise in this movie
for me.
And the pacing is kind of really bad.
The movie will sometimes grind to a complete halt to do a joke that’s more confusing
and annoying than funny.
One scene in particular involving a wedding where I was wondering, what am i watching
right now.
What happened to the story of this movie?
In conclusion, Pirates 5 isn’t something I think is worth running out to the cinema
to see.
If you’re a big fan of this franchise, sure, you’ll probably get a kick out of it.
But otherwise, this is worth watching at home when you can maybe look at your phone or do
something else when it gets kind of uninteresting.
Some great moments, but nothing really special.
I’ll give Pirates 5 a 6.3/10.
So those were my thoughts on the 5th Pirates film.
What did you think of it?
Let me know all of your thoughts down below in the comments.
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Thanks for watching and I’ll see ya next time.