Much has changed in the six years since the Black Pearl’s last voyage. Of late Johnny Depp, the previously beloved star of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” flicks, has been tabloid fodder, his personal life a treasure trove of scandal. Will Deep’s martial and financial peccadillos harm the new movie’s bottom line, sinking the once mighty franchise in a one-way trip to Davy Jones’s Locker? Or will Captain Jack Sparrow once again frolic down the plank to titanic grosses? Those are the questions hanging heavy over “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.
“The dead have taken command of the sea. They’re searching for Sparrow!”
The new adventure sees a new villain, undead pirate hunter Capt. Salazar (Javier Bardem), unleash an army of ghost sailors from a mysterious nautical underworld called the Devil’s Triangle. His plan is to hunt down and kill every sea going pirate with one name at the top of his list, Captain Jack Sparrow. Seems Sparrow not only doomed Salazar to watery purgatory decades ago but also has a compass that can break the ghost sailor’s hex curse.
“Find Jack Sparrow for me and relay a message from Captain Salazar. Tell him, death will come straight for him. Will you say that to him, please?”
Sparrow (Depp), meanwhile, has lost his mojo. After a wild bank robbery that tore up half of the island of Saint Martin but yielded little in the way of doubloons, Jack loses his luck and his crew. Reduced to helming the Dying Gull, a small and barely seaworthy ship, he must now fight for his life. To survive he has to locate the Trident of Poseidon, a divine artefact that can break any curse at sea. Helping on his mission are Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), an astronomer with a diary filled with cryptic Trident clues and directions and Royal Navy sailor Henry (Brenton Thwaites).
Also mixed up in the action are returning characters, blacksmith-turned-Captain of the Flying Dutchman Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth (Keira Knightley), Turner’s wife and Henry’s mother, one-legged pirate Captain Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and Captain Jack’s First Mate Joshamee Gibbs (Kevin McNally).
New comers include witch Haifaa Meni (Golshifteh Farahani) and Paul McCartney as a jokey pirate behind bars, eagerly awaiting a beating.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” is more of a linear adventure than the series’ last few instalments. It’s a tale of mysticism and slapstick, a story that freshens up the franchise, although it cannot be denied that the originality and ingenuity of the first movie has turned into a fine mist that colours this movie but has no where near the impact of the original.
Once again Depp slurs and sashays through the movie, getting the biggest laughs. Sparrow is still an interesting character, a debauched scallywag (apparently based on Keith Richards) who appeals to children and adults alike. The embattled actor hams it up, giving audiences what they expect from Sparrow but whether moviegoers still want to see him in his best-known role is hard to say.
Tonally Depp hits the right notes but the movie is all over the place. Kid friendly slapstick is abundant but there is also a fair amount of PG+ swashbuckling, action and swordplay. And don’t get me started on the nightmare inducing zombie sharks.
Parents of small children will want to keep that in mind, and the two-hour plus running time. Like so many tent pole movies “Dead Men Tell No Tales” suffers from more-is-more syndrome. The action is easier to follow than in the Gore Verbinski films but watery climax is too long and a coda, reuniting the characters for one last hurrah, is unnecessary and adds little to the film except for a few extra minutes.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” is a crowd pleaser and by far the best of the bunch since the first one. It contains all the elements you expect from the “Pirates” franchise and even a few you don’t but takes on water in its final half hour.
Jerry Bruckheimer is the most successful movie producer on the planet. Nicknamed “Mr. Blockbuster” Bruckheimer is either regarded as a genius or a lowbrow hack, depending on your tolerance for rapid gunfire, slo-mo car crashes and scripts with the emotional depth of a lunch tray. Movies such as Bad Boys, The Rock and Con Air have made him very rich and while he busied himself circling the earth in his Gulfstream IV private jet, thinking up new and insidious ways to blow things up, a trio of British filmmakers came up with a film called Hot Fuzz that both pays tribute to, and takes the Mickey out of, the Bruckheimer oeuvre.
A couple of years ago actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, along with director Edgar Wright created Shawn of the Dead, a zombie movie that effectively mixed big laughs with buckets of gore. That movie became a giant cult hit, establishing them as purveyors of smart, funny pop culture satire. This time out they’ve made an unlikely buddy cop picture that takes a few minutes too long to take off, but pays big dividends in the third act.
Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is a big city London cop with an impressive record. He lives and breathes the job, and in one year racks up an incredible 400 arrests. His efforts don’t go unnoticed. In fact, they attract too much notice forcing his supervisors to arrange to have him shipped off to a remote village because his gung-ho attitude is making them look like slackers. Transferred to the sleepy little township of Sandford he soon begins to suspect that the quiet town holds some dangerous secrets. Teamed with a bumbling partner (Nick Frost) he sets out to get to the bottom of a series of remarkable “accidents” that have claimed the lives of several notable citizens. The nefarious plot the feisty cop uncovers is part Wicker Man, part Bad Boys.
Director and co-writer Wright carefully combines the very English sensibility of a movie like Wicker Man, in which a small community is investigated by a strong-willed cop, with the pyrotechnics of an American action film. Using the Bruckheimer Rule which states that the movie will get bigger, louder and more violent as it nears its close, Wright begins with a character study that morphs into a full-on blood-soaked actioner by the end of the last reel.
Cleverly edited and smartly written—homages include a tip of the hat to Chinatown, the greatest crime script ever written, with, “Forget it, Angel. It’s Sandford” and a literal shot-by-shot recreation from Point Blank—the film could use some judicious editing in the early reels. Hot Fuzz has an interesting premise and some good jokes, but at 121 minutes it feels a bit labored.
To pass the time during the dull bits keep your eyes peeled for some unaccredited big time cameos. Sharp-eyed viewers will be able to spot Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson as a homicidal Father Christmas, and Cate Blanchett as Angel’s masked CSI ex-girlfriend.
Hot Fuzz doesn’t succeed as brilliantly as Shawn of the Dead, but does an admirable job of mixing hilarity and havoc. I think even Bruckheimer would approve.
Déjà vu isn’t so much a whodunit as it is a howdunnit. At the center of this New Orleans murder mystery is a government computer program that allows scientists to recreate the past, traveling back in time four days and six hours. This journey into the heart psychics is fleeting, however. The g-men brainiacs can recreate a perfect image of the past, complete with different camera angles and perfect sound, but because of the great amount of energy needed to generate the image they can’t rewind or pause. This ghostly likeness of the past plays in real time and then, like real life, is gone forever.
How do they do it? Good question. The movie takes pains to explain the science in a long protracted scene and they shouldn’t have bothered. It’s all mumbo jumbo that slows the picture’s momentum to a crawl, but fortunately, that’s the only time the police procedural aspects of the movie take second place to the scientific claptrap. The rest of the film is straight out action and suspense. It a metaphysical story with the onus on the physical.
Denzel Washington is an ATF investigator whose analysis of an alleged terrorist bombing of a New Orleans ferry carrying hundreds of U.S. sailors leads him not to an Al-Qaeda cell but to a homegrown terror plot and a beautiful girl who may have been an unwitting victim. So far it’s like a really elaborate episode of CSI, (which like the movie is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer), but the wrinkle comes in the form of a wrinkle in time. The above-mentioned time machine bends not only time but also the movie, transforming it from a standard run-of-the-mill police drama into a metaphysical thrill ride.
Director Tony Scott, brother of Ridley and maker of such frenetically edited films as Domino and (and two others with Denzel including Man on Fire and Crimson Tide) infuses every frame of the film with beautifully composed shots and intricately choreographed action sequences. Time travel has never looked this good. In one spectacular scene Denzel engages in a car chase set in two time zones simultaneously. It’s exciting and unlike anything you’ve seen before.
The science in Déjà vu doesn’t add up and, frankly, the movie doesn’t have much to do with déjà vu, but Scott and Washington are a reliable team and deliver enough wham-bam action and eye candy to earn a recommendation.
Much has changed in the six years since the Black Pearl’s last voyage. Of late Johnny Depp, the previously beloved star of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” flicks, has been tabloid fodder, his personal life a treasure trove of scandal. Will Deep’s martial and financial peccadillos harm the new movie’s bottom line, sinking the once mighty franchise in a one-way trip to Davy Jones’s Locker? Or will Captain Jack Sparrow once again frolic down the plank to titanic grosses? Those are the questions hanging heavy over “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.
