Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge

Almost all of us unanimously loved the first 3 parts of the Pirates of The Caribbean series. The franchise never made us feel that it was actually inspired from a theme park ride. The fourth part was a terribly low key experience and the latest movie in the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge / Dead Men Tell No Tales, is yet again a dull experience with very discrete moments of its signature humor.

Will Turner’s son Henry Turner is trying to break his father’s curse this time by finding the trident of Poseidon. During his journey he happens to see the ghost of an old Spanish Captain Salazar who also wants to break the curse. But the ghost had another mission for Henry and that was to find Jack Sparrow with whom Salazar has a score to settle and leave him a message.  So the film is ultimately dealing with the quest for the trident and also the revenge of Salazar.

The franchise was a grand success mainly due to the irreverent fun it used to create through its characters. The initial movies were so funny and absorbing that I remember talking like a pirate using all those terms like Aye, Savvy etc. after watching them. The characters and their mannerisms stayed with us. The crazy set pieces made us laugh out loud insanely. In all those movies Jack Sparrow had a fare share and importance on screen. When it comes to this film, there is a sequence where Jack is about to be executed by the British, but as usual he manages to run away with all the accidental comedy of errors happening. That one scene gave us a small dosage of how this movie should have been and apart from that, the feeling you get is mushy.

In Salazar’s revenge Johnny Depp doesn’t have much to do. He is largely in the backdrop of some of the events. It is almost like a story that deals with Henry and Salazar’s quest for the trident and Sparrow is just there among the crew. The film gives us very little of the Jack Sparrow we all love. Javier Bardem was good as Captain Salazar. Kaya scodelario and her cleavage have equal screen space. Brenton Thwaites wasn’t that great as Henry. Geoffrey Rush portrays an old and emotional Barbossa.

Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg are established film makers. But they just don’t seem to get the feel of the franchise. The screenplay becomes tedious due to the lack of fun in the dosage one would expect. Like I already said, it fails to include Jack Sparrow more in to the proceedings. His quirks were not enough and most of the times it was depending too much on what we already have seen. The chances of you remembering any lines from this film are very less. The visuals are stunning and I am guessing the enormous 230 Million dollar budget was spent on that. The background score doesn’t work the way it used to.

If you are someone like me who loved the first 3 POTC films directed by Gore Verbinski, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead men tell no tales / Salazar’s Revenge would be a very disappointing experience. If they don’t look in to that fun factor which made this franchise a hit, POTC will sink soon.

Rating: 2/5