Pirates Of The Caribbean : Salazar's Revenge

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN :

SALAZAR'S REVENGE

(a.k.a Dead Men Tell No Tales)

Directors : Joaquim Ronning and Espen Sandberg
Year : 2017
Genre : Fantasy
Rating : *

If there is one good thing to say about 'Pirates Of The Caribbean : Salazar's Revenge' it is that, compared to it's predecessors, it's mercifully short. Clocking in at a relatively brisk 129 minutes, the film doesn't outstay its welcome like previous entries in the series did such as 2004's 'Dead Man's Chest' which ran for 151 minutes and 2008's 'At World's End' which ran for a ludicrous 169 minutes!

Good thing too because 'Salazar's Revenge', the fifth movie in this increasingly tedious fantasy franchise is, without any shadow of a doubt, the worst one yet - fatally lacking any of the swashbuckling thrills that made 'The Curse Of The Black Pearl'  such a huge commercial hit in 2003 and instead replacing them with boring CGI-heavy fight scenes, murky visuals, uninteresting two-dimensional characters and overly-smutty innuendos which are frankly unsuitable for a family friendly fantasy adventure. Not to mention zombie sharks and a fleeting cameo from Paul McCartney.

As is typical with this series, the plot is muddled to the point of utter incoherency. Following on from the events of 2011's instantly forgettable 'On Stranger Tides', 'Salazar's Revenge' sees Johnny Depp's obnoxious Jack Sparrow on the hunt for the elusive Trident of Poseidon while avoiding the wrath of the bloodthirsty Salazar (Javier Bardem), an undead ghost captain who brutally threatens to rid the oceans of piracy once and for all. Meanwhile, Brandon Thwaites' Henry Turner joins Jack's crew, believing that the mythical Trident will be able to break the curse that afflicts his father  Will - the doomed helmsman of the infamous Flying Dutchman played by series regular Orlando Bloom.

From the moment that Depp's desperately unfunny Cap'n Jack shambles onto the screen, 'Salazar's Revenge' becomes an endurance test and things only get worse as the narrative becomes more convoluted and the action becomes more devoid of, well, action. A couple of set pieces are mildly diverting - a much-trailed sequence involving a guillotine, while ridiculous, is pretty fun to watch and the final underwater battle at least attempts to recreate the fun of the first two superior films. But these are rare moments of entertainment in an otherwise annoying, ugly, loud, and knuckle chewingly boring waste of 2 hours. According to directors Joaquim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, there are at least two more movies in the pipeline but as the unanimously negative critical reception towards 'Salazar's Revenge' so clearly proves, this is one franchise that should have walked the plank a long, long time ago. Savvy?