So, we have come to number five in the Pirates franchise. Roger Corman I understand once advised that film franchises rarely go beyond three because after that point you have run out of variations on a theme. Clearly there are exception to Corman Rule, Bond and Godzilla both come to mind. With the Pirates movies I would argue that the series ran out after film one.

Dead Men Tell no Tales adds very little of value to the wider story of Pirates of the Caribbean though perhaps the producers should have considered that we really didn’t need a wider mythos for that story. The protagonists of the story are Henry, son of Will Truner from the first movie, out on a quest to claim Poseidon Trident to free his father of the curse that makes him Davy Jones, and Carina Smyth, a young woman of scientific inclination out to prove a mythical map is real, said map leading to said Trident. We of course have the Return of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow, crew after his luck has turned bad, and Geoffrey Rush’s Barbosa, no leading a fleet of pirates across the Atlantic. Added to the mix is David Wenham Royal Navy Officer Scarfield, who wants the Trident to make England the undisputed master of the seas, (Wait, at this time she already is, frankly it would have more interesting to posit that is why England rules all the waves around the globe.) and for a villain we have Javier Bardem as an undead Spanish naval officer who hates pirates and Sparrow in particular.

Sounds confusing and overly complicated? It is. This is a script fully slaved to the big set action pieces and special effects with almost nothing left for character. What is left for character is too fragment to hold interest as everyone has a storyline where they briefly feature, learn a valuable life lesson, and grow just a little bit.

The film is not original in story, character, or action and rarely engaging. Frankly, this one is a wait for video and then watch something else.