‘I have a rendezvous beyond my beloved horizon…’
Why… why do I bother? I love franchise films (especially in the horror genre), but why do I subject myself to so many of them knowing they will be dogger. Bizarrely, I saw the fourth Pirates movie at the cinema, and I knew it was going to be dogger, and then, sure enough, it was dogger. And now, with lockdown giving me nothing but time and the internet giving me nothing but choice, I have somehow settled on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. I’m no further on in looking for a new house. Piles of books sit unread on my bedside table. My guitar is gathering dust in the corner. And instead of doing any of those things, I spent over two hours in the company of Jack Sparrow. I think when people have resorted to Jack Sparrow, it’s time to open the pubs again.
There is probably more to the plot than this, but from what I can gather, Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is chased around the high seas by a bunch of ghosts. Almost like an episode of Scooby Doo, but with less dogs.
In the interest of positivity I will start with Javier Bardem. The veteran actor is genuinely unsettling as the spectral Captain Salazar, and if not for him, this really would be a huge, floating turd in a bandana with a sword. He offers all the best moments, and the scene in which he commands a fleet of huge, rotting ghost sharks is pretty wonderful. Alas, this is probably the only memorable moment in the entire movie, with huge swathes of the plot devoted to a character who is somehow even more boring than Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner.
The whole thing is a bland retread of previous sequels and should be the final nail in the Pirates coffin. Unfortunately, it made shed loads of money, as every film in the franchise has, and so we will no doubt see Johnny Depp labour his way through another ‘performance’ very soon. And the absolute worst thing is that I will watch that bastard as well.
Dogger.