Javier Bardem in Pirates 5 |
“If
You Like It”
A Review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No
Tales by Nick Olszyk
MPAA Rating, PG-13
USCCB Rating, A-III
Reel Rating, Two Reels
When
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of
the Black Pearl premiered in 2003, expectations were low. It was, after
all, based on a theme park ride, and Johnny Depp, while popular, was not yet
the superstar he would later become. Despite misgivings, it broke numerous
records, at one point being the 16th highest grossing film of all
time. Ever more surprising, it earned Depp his first Oscar nomination for actor
in a leading role, one of the few from an adventure film to achieve that feat.
After several overblown sequels, the franchise has settled comfortably into
what it was always meant to be: a fun and silly romp with lovable characters
but not much else. Dead Men Tell No Tales
has a confusing story filled with clichés and eye rolls, but for devoted fans
Jack and his motley crew – which includes myself – it will probably be
satisfying enough.
Will
Turner’s son Henry (Brenton Thwaites), who had a brief cameo in a post-credits
scene in At World’s End, believes he
can lifted his father’s curse with the power of Poseidon’s Trident. For some
reason that’s not been made exactly clear, he needs Jack Sparrow or at least
Jack’s compass to achieve this. By the necessity of storytelling, Henry also comes
across Carina (Kaya Scodelario) a woman of similar age and attractiveness who
is looking for the Trident as well. Their plans are hindered the undead Spanish
Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) who holds an ancient grudge against Jack and
the British navy who hates pirates, witches, traitors, and basically everything
except well starched uniforms.
All
these points are sloppily put together in what can technically be defined as a
“plot.” Fortunately, the best part of any movie like this are the characters,
which are still amusing to watch. Though tampered by age and endless parodies
of himself, Jack is still in full form as the boozy, swashbuckling pirate
Captain. Both Henry and Carina perfectly play out their gradual chemistry as
they steal looks from one another and go back and forth from hate-love-hate-love-kiss-slap.
Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) undergoes the most staggering change from a
villain in the first film to resurrected cameo in the second to ally in the
third to now full fleshed sympathetic and sacrificial hero. There’s also a fair
amount of CGI action, which is pretty cool, especially an opening scene where
Jack attempts to rob a safe with unexpected consequences. Yet without a sound
story, it all feels rather restrained – more a series of skits than a cohesive
narrative. Dead Man illustrates that
a story need not excel at every element in order to make a good experience; it
just has to have people the audience loves and wants to see succeed. They could
make a four hour epic called Pirates of
the Caribbean: Jack Eats a Bowl of Soup, and it would still make $100
million dollars.
The
worst aspect of Dead Man is that,
like many lazy movies, it gives in to the worst Hollywood clichés both
contemporary and of past eras. The best example of this is Carina who proudly
she declares that she “is a woman of science.” On several occasions, she is
thus branded a witch, once just for demonstrating she knows how a telescope
works. This is a double groan in that the pre-modern world, especially
Christianity, is mocked for both its supposed opposition to science and its
supposed sexism. Everyone in the film just assumes Carina is incapable of
anything due to her Y chromosome abnormality – anything except look good in a
corset. This is ridiculous on both accounts. Throughout its history, the Church
has been a huge patron of the natural sciences, and plenty of women occupied
important positions of influence. St. Catherine even ordered the Pope around.
Fortunately, Henry gets the upper hand and proves that the supernatural does
exist, although in this case, it is trying to kill them.
There
are several twists and turns in course of Henry and Carina’s journey, and all of
them involve family to one degree or another. This is what makes the Pirates series so successful. The
swordfights, ship ramming, and rum are important, but it’s the relationship
between the characters the ties everyone together. The last venture, On Stranger Tides, felt off because it
was divorced from these bonds and Dead
Man returns and develops them in compelling ways. This is what made
Shakespeare’s narratives so compelling and why Star Wars will always be superior to Star Trek. There are two beautiful reveals towards the end
involving family that are so good, they are worth the price of admission alone.
The
Pirates of the Caribbean franchise
was an odd success that took a historical phenomenon that was quite unseemly
and made it into a tween-friendly empire – Jake
and the Neverland Pirates probably the most far flung example.
Romanticism turns rebels into saints. This impulse, on the whole, is good as it
expresses the inherit need for adventure and excitement, especially to the
adolescent mind, provided it is balanced with fantasy for context. Dead Man Tell No Tales is probably the
worst of the series, but it in no way dampened my desires to see the next one.
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