Cast: Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario, Kevin McNally, Geoffrey Rush,

Directed by: Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg

Running time: 129 mins

Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures, Jerry Bruckheimer Films

Genre: Fantasy/Action

Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge is the 5th movie in the franchise and clearly they have run out of ideas and situations to put Jack Sparrow in. It’s not the best movie in this franchise but its also not the worse. It sits somewhere in between. As you expects it’s a CGI monstrosity of a film but lacks an emotional touch. Johnny Depp returns to play Captain Jack, the same drag act all over again and quite frankly we have grown weary of it.

The film starts with Will’s son, Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) hell bent on lifting his father’s curse by finding something called the Trident. Apparently this device makes you the ruler of the sea, but it’s found only by a map that can’t be read by any man. So for obvious reasons, a woman named Karina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) reads it via looking at the stars. The not so menacing villain Salazar, played by Javier Bardem, is thrown in the mix who’s extremely angry about being deuced by young Jack Sparrow and sets off to seek revenge when Jack gives away his trustee compass. Geoffrey Rush’s Barbossa now commandeers a fleet of ships that get decimated by Salazar and his undead army. Seriously what is with this franchise and the undead? Anyway, Barbossa tells Salazar that he can find Jack and the movie sail’s on. On the other hand, Jack, Henry and Karina form a team with Jack’s old crew and set off to locate the Trident because it could stop Salazar and it can also free Will’s father. Mad max on water is what this is, only not as good.

The movie fails to find an emotional beat. The characters are hollow and thin with motivations that are sometimes blurry. One moment Jack’s crew leaves him and the next moment they save him. The newbies in the franchise drown this movie down to bad acting and emotionless dialogues. Sometimes the plot seemed a bit too convenient. A witch suddenly attains Jack’s compass and hands it over to Barbossa, just like that. The primary antagonist, Salazar was less scary and more stupid. The love story struck out, it seemed off and cliché. The story was pretty predictable and the final act was not at all satisfying, emotionally and story wise. It seemed like they took the easy way out. The side characters were underutilized to the core. Sure they had a couple of good lines here and there but overall their jokes fell splat on water. The introduction of Jack Sparrow and the antics that followed were quite entertaining during the first half, if you can turn your brain off for a bit. The zombie shark could have been a nice touch but then they went full transformers with it, going low angle slow-mo and that was a let down too. Stricken by predictable twists this voyage tends to bend towards an underwhelming movie. Although there are few moments that make you laugh, mostly by the Captain himself it is downright lazy.

All in all the film struggles to sell the ‘daddy issues’ to the audience and in the bargain delivers an average summer movie. But hey, there’s a cameo by one of the remaining Beatles. So if you can turn a blind eye to evident plot holes, mindless entertainment and predictable twists, this movie is for you. If you’re a fan of Captain Jack, there are plenty of shenanigans lined up. But if you want a good solid movie, it’s probably not a good idea to sail the seas this summer.