It’s a rare event indeed when a sequel lives up to the original movie in a franchise and even rarer for one to surpass the first movie entirely, but with the latest installment of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, they just might have accomplished that.
The story takes place roughly five years after the events chronicled in “On Stranger Tides,” the last movie released in 2011. Here, Captain Jack and company are searching for the trident of Poseidon, a powerful artifact that can break all the curses of the sea.
As the story begins, we meet young Henry Turner, the son of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), who is searching for his father who has been cursed on his ship, the Flying Dutchman, and is now living under the depths of the sea.
Several years later, we meet Henry, now a strapping lad serving aboard a frigate tasked with hunting pirates. The lad is somewhat disobedient, though, and finds himself in the brig before too long. Enter Captain Salazar, a mentor of sorts for our antihero, Jack Sparrow. Salazar is now cursed to live his life as one of the undead, terrorizing the sea and killing all with whom he crosses paths. Such is the case with the frigate where he finds Henry and leaves the lad as the sole survivor of the encounter.
But of course, no Pirates movie would be complete without the presence of our fabled Captain Jack. Here, his dubious first appearance occurs as his crew, led by the redoubtable Gibbs (Kevin McNally) are attempting to heist a new super safe from the town bank. The ensuing chase is probably one of the finest and funniest moments of the entire series and it solidifies the return of the antihero most ably played by Johnny Depp.
Depp is in as fine form as ever with this chapter, showing off his refined comedic and slapstick skills with great aplomb as the tale unfolds. He manages to keep his fellow actors on their toes with his interactions, whether they be overt or even subtle as with just a glance or glare that expresses the character’s motivations at any given time.
Javier Bardem adds another level of the sinister as Captain Salazar, a hideous manifestation that has pledged to rid the world of pirates and, most notably, Jack Sparrow, the man who managed to trick him into entering the devil’s triangle in the first place. That simple act turned Salazar into a foul beast who is cursed to wander the seas forever without the ability to step foot on dry land without disintegrating.
As Henry Turner, Brenton Thwaites adds the right combination of bravado and awe that we saw in Orlando Bloom during the first Pirate movie back in 2003. You can actually buy him as the son of Bloom and Keira Knightly, who appears in a brief cameo as Elizabeth Swann.
The new ingenue in the cast is Carina Smyth, a woman with abilities that get her branded as a witch and threatened with death more than once in the course of the storyline. She holds a secret that ties her closely into the tale and that secret is revealed later in the movie. Carina is played by Kaya Scodelario with the same offbeat charm that attracted us to the aforementioned Knightly. Since another Pirate movie is evidently on the horizon, I hope we can count on her to keep up the good work in another story or two.
Oh, and Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) is also back to cause more than a few problems for Captain Jack. And his monkey, Jack, is here as well, providing more than a couple of laughs for the audience, sometimes even at his own expense.
The quality of the Pirate movies steadily slipped after the release of the first story, so I was hard-pressed to think that they would ever make another one. Now, I’m glad they did and I’m actually looking forward to the next one. I give “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” a solid 5 out of 5 stars.
