So, the saying goes
that dead men tell no tales, but if there is anything to be taken away from a
fifth instalment of Pirates of the
Caribbean, it’s that drowning men sing loudly and off-key in gurgles. I
went and saw the movie the other night with some friends, all of us expecting
it to be absolute crap, and at least we weren’t disappointed. Indeed half the
fun of deliberately going to see a bad movie is that you can bitch about all
the things that are wrong with it. And oh there are so many things wrong with Dead Men Tell No Tales.
The movie begins
with a little prelude of Will’s son Henry making a pledge to free his father
from the curse that binds him to the Flying Dutchman. Fast-forward nine years
later and Henry (Brenton Twaites) is still out to keep that promise by finding
the mythical trident of Poseidon, which will break all sea-curses. Henry’s
course intertwines with that of an ambitious astrologer and horologer named
Carina (Kaya Scodelario) and together they team up with Captain Jack Sparrow to
find the trident. However, working with Sparrow comes with a price, in this
case a crew of cursed undead sailors lead by Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem)
who is out for revenge against the infamous Sparrow. I am still firmly of the
opinion that they could have stopped after Curse of the Black Pearl. The whole Pirates
franchise is a classic example of what happens when a supporting character
gains immense popularity, sparking dollar signs in the eyes of studios and
producers. They have milked the characters for all that they’re worth and it
seems that they’ll continue to milk them until there’s nothing left. So that
opinion was already an influential force when I entered the cinema. And then
there was Pirates 5.
Problem 1: the
script. A few words that immediately spring to mind are ‘lazy’, ‘inconsistent’
and ‘heartless’. It was lazy because it was more or less a complete rehashing
of its predecessors. Haven’t I seen this film before? Yes, four times over! At
least with Curse, Chest, and World’s End there was some exposition
behind the curses that give the computer wizards their payday. Apparently, the
sea is just a place where people get cursed to be undead, zombie creatures, in
a constant state of drowning and it’s all Jack’s fault. Revenge does not a sole
plot make! Neither does the whole “I made a promise and I will fulfil it even
if it takes forever”. Ugh!
Add to the shaky story foundation a pile of fresh
dung in the form of rigid and clumsy dialogue as well as forced jokes and
clichéd character arcs and voila! A film to make audiences of all shapes and
sizes groan in unison!
To make matters worse, there are so many continuity
issues in this movie it’s downright infuriating and insulting to the fans. If
you’re going to make a movie that focuses on characters and items that have
appeared in other filmsthat havealready had their stories told, then, ugh maybe
watch those movies and get your facts
straight! I won’t identify the issues here, but argh it’s beyond annoying
that these sorts of rewrites and mistakes are being made. You cannot eradicate
and rewrite an entire history with one line!
It honestly feels like everyone
went into this with hope and excitement, but their hearts stopped, turned
green, and shrivelled up before all the characters were even on a boat together.
Problem 2: the CGI has definitely seen better days. I will admit that the hair
effect of Captain Salazar was kind of cool once you got used to the weirdness
of it (it’s constantly flowing as though he’s drowning), but that’s where my
kindness stops. Facial imaging did not work for creating a young Tony Stark in Civil War and it still doesn’t work
creating a young Jack Sparrow. The effect is not “wow that’s amazing and
flawless”, it’s “ugh that is so creepy, make it go away!” And then we have
zombie sharks, hugely overdone action
pieces and chase sequences, beyond pointless slow-motion segments, and an
underwater oasis, which is a complete rip-off of Moana.
And finally, problem 3: there are so many characters and
therefore, actors who did not need to be in this movie at all! We have another
witch, a rip-off of Tia Dalma that literally serves no purpose other to be
another female character, David Wenham’s character who, I guess, was just there
to remind us of Norrington and Beckett?: ambitious men of authority to contrast
the freedom of pirates and the undead, the two bumbling officials from Curse who turned pirate at the end of World’s End are literally here rehashing
their old gags, and a ridiculously pointless cameo from Sir Paul McCartney. At
least there was a joke behind Keith Richards’ appearance in the third movie.
It’s
needless to say that Pirates 5 is not
a good movie, indeed if you do intend on seeing it, go with the expectation of
it being crap because then your hopes will not be dashed and you will have many
things to complain about and make fun of, which is sometimes just what you
need.
Starring: Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Geoffrey Rush, Brenton Twaites,
Kaya Scodelario, Kevin McNally, David Wenham, Martin Klebba, Orlando Bloom, and
Keira Knightley
Year: 2017
Rating: M
No comments:
Post a Comment