Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

The production design and the effects are great, as only Bruckheimer's bottomless wallet can do, but the fifth encounter with Jack Sparrow is like meeting a drunk who tells you funny stories and you don't want to listen to him anymore because he's annoying. He just drunkenly drones on and on and on and you get tired of it :o) (29/09/2017)

The pirates are back after six years and the longer hiatus has probably been good for them, as this is one of the best episodes. The high budget is definitely evident (there are speculations that it was as high as 300 million, some say 400, IMDB says 230 million, I don't know who is right, but I find 230 more believable). The film has a decent pace, nice new characters, especially Kaya Scodelario is a feast for the eyes, but Javier Bardem as the bad guy was also decently scary. Jack Sparrow is still the same. The highlight for me was the dead rotten sharks, something I haven’t seen anywhere, and the spectacular finale. What sucks is that there are no sword fights, most of the action is between ships. The film deserves to be seen in theatres for the visuals alone. 80%. (27/05/2017)

It's better than the previous film, but not by much. The gratifying difference is mainly that this time the creators really tried to come up with interesting and unique ideas, but unfortunately, they forgot about the story. They almost completely forgot about it. On the one hand, there is a great guillotine scene in the fifth Pirates, which feels like it came from Gore Verbinski's mind, a fine finale on an anchor and a few irresistible black-humor scenes (being elected captain, for example). On the other hand, there is also a lot of overly simple humor (tacky double-meanings as if from contemporary domestic comedies), which is unnecessarily predictable (you always know that a joke is coming), a couple of all-too-surprising twists for which I would most like to stretch someone on the rack, and for most of the film, Jack Sparrow's “humor" is supposed to consist of him being drunk like a dog, and therefore he behaves even stranger than normally. I liked Javier Bardem's villain, the central couple not so much... Geoffrey Rush didn't get much space, but he did his best. The music was desperately inconspicuous. (26/05/2017)

A season of long and infinitely stupid movies. In the first half hour, there are a few candid ideas, then it's just two types of misery porn: you can watch mischievously as the screenwriters have a hard time with it and try to connect the plot so that it makes sense at least a little bit, and you can watch Depp even more mischievously, who clearly finds more of himself than he would like in the role of a bankrupt pirate feeding on self-deception. Joachim Rønning / Espen Sandberg do a solid job, but this ship leaks more than the Kon-Tiki. (17/09/2017)

I wasn't expecting anything, I got a very nice show, although it may not look like it at first. For the first forty-five minutes, the film tries to recycle Jack Sparrow and his jokes, which unfortunately doesn't really work. The character doesn't really surprise with much of anything anymore, and the new faces don't seem very interesting at first. But then he sails out to sea and directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg seem to have decided to put all the hijinks behind them and push for a much more adventurous atmosphere. And they succeed. The huge budget shows and Salazar's Revenge is a big film that paces incredibly well. At the same time, the emotions work within the adventure genre and Kaya Scodelario is very fine as the new female lead. Which is also nice considering newcomer Brenton Thwaites doesn't impress much and even Javier Bardem deserves a slightly more interesting role. Of course, for all the adventurous goofiness and pacing, you'll probably address these shortcomings after the film; there really won't be time for that during the film. A proper Bruckheimer blockbuster and the best film of the franchise after the first one. (24/05/2017)