Was anyone really clamoring for yet another Pirates of the Caribbean movie?
Disney has made five Pirates of the Caribbean movies to date. That’s five blockbuster films based on nothing more than a theme park ride (albeit a popular one that gave rise to the indispensable pirate anthem “A Pirate’s Life for Me”). That these films managed to be created from such a simple concept could easily be considered remarkable.
The films are creative and whimsical to say the least. They are also highly successful and predictable moneymakers, the type of franchise studios dream about at night. Captain Jack Sparrow is arguably Johnny Depp’s most famous role, which saying something for an actor who has played Edward Scissorhands, Gilbert Grape, Ed Wood, Donnie Brasco, Raoul Duke, and Sweeny Todd.
But despite the success of the franchise, only the first film in the saga is genuinely worthwhile. It was a surprise gem that thrilled audiences with humor and heart. The sequels all suffer from a certain amount of franchise fatigue. This can be characterized as continual diminishing returns that result in overstuffed plots, an excess of characters, and an overreliance on CGI and the charisma of popular characters.
The original Pirates of the Caribbean was a breath of fresh air. The sequels are a slowly deflating balloon. The latest film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is much the same.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales picks up a few years after 2011’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, although it only seems to be tangentially related to that film. This year’s film is instead a continuation of the original tale featuring Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) and William Turner (Orlando Bloom).
This is to the film’s credit, of course, since the only thing memorable about On Stranger Tides is a vague sense of disappointment in Ian McShane. Neither Bloom nor Knightly are in Dead Men Tell No Tales for long—as with lots of sequels, the new film replaces the leads with younger, unknown actors in an attempt to recapture the magic of the original.
In this one, the son of William and Elizabeth hopes to free his father from his tribulation aboard the Flying Dutchman by finding the trident of Poseidon, which supposedly has the power to break any curse and give its wielder control of the seas.
Through a series of Hollywood happenstance, young Henry (Brenton Thwaites) meets Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) a young woman of science everyone thinks is a witch, even though she clearly weighs more than a duck.
Carina happens to have a map to the trident and Jack Sparrow is involved for some reason relating to undead pirates that isn’t sufficiently explained. It’s a nonsensical high seas tale that will likely please audiences who don’t care about competent story telling.
Still, the film looks great, and the score swells in all the right places, and there are some decent laughs involving a guillotine that makes the film mostly watchable, so long as the audience isn’t paying close attention to what actually happens.
I rewatched some of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End this weekend after seeing the new film, just to remind myself of the narrative in previous installments. I noticed that there isn’t much continuity between the movies as far as the supernatural elements are concerned.
Given that the final film in the corresponding story was completed ten years ago, these incongruities won’t matter much to anyone keeping score at home. It’s all ghost sharks and undead sailors anyway—the piracy has taken a backseat for some time now.
The performances in Dead Men Tell No Tales are adequate, and it seems that Depp can slide back into the character of Jack Sparrow at will without missing a beat. That’s something, I guess. It’s a role he was born to play.
The question, then, is this: was anyone begging for another Pirates of the Caribbean film? I’d say the answer is “no.” The film doesn’t really justify its own existence beyond cynical franchise dollars and it’s made by a company that already owns the biggest film franchises in history.
Star Wars and the Marvel Films are both Disney properties—it’s not far-fetched to think that sometime in the future all Hollywood films will be made by the Mouse. Disney has done well with some films within these properties, of course, but they are clearly fan service films rather than original ideas.
If audiences want originality, they’ll need to look elsewhere.