Old ghosts come back to haunt our favorite Captain Jack. To survive their wrath, he must team up with the son of some old friends and a mysterious and beautiful astronomer to track down the Trident of Poseidon.
It’s been 14 years since Disney re-introduced the appeal of Pirates to the audience on the big screen. Now with the fifth and final entry to this multi-billion dollar success (at least with Johnny Depp at the helm), we can give it one more “Ahoy matey”.
What I liked:
When you’re talking about the 5th movie in a franchise, expecting a good film seems pretty hopeless so I wasn’t hoping for much. An exception to this rule is the Fast and the Furious franchise (which proudly owns its over-the-top ridiculousness and doubles down to multi-billion dollar success). However, upon viewing it myself it actually exceeded my expectations by quite a bit. In fact, I think I like this one the most behind the first one. I’d rank the films as 1,5,4,2,3.
I found it very entertaining and it kept my attention from beginning to end. There was a lot of suspense and it actually introduced some horror elements that I didn’t notice in the previous entries. The graphics and visuals were great and this is one of the rare occasions when I recommend watching in 3D because they incorporated it well.
There were a couple of cameos that I enjoyed. In terms of performances, Javier Bardem was a good villain. Johnny brought the same Jack Sparrow we’ve been used to for 14 years. It might be stale for some, but I was fine with it. Jeffrey Rush was great as Barbosa once again. I actually think his character has evolved the most over the course of this franchise so he is the most interesting one for me and I have a soft spot for him.
What I didn’t like:
Without specifying spoilers, there were some continuity errors that I know will bother enthusiasts. The goal of this film definitely seemed to be about wrapping up most of the loose ends for Jack Sparrow.
Some of the dialogue wasn’t easy to understand, kind of like Naomi Harris’s character in the second and third entries. The visuals were good, but the young Captain Jack looked weird, sort of like how the young Tony Stark looked weird in Captain America 3.
I love the Pirates soundtrack and always have, but there wasn’t enough musical variation. I wanted a more updated sound while still keeping the same Pirates feel. This sounds exactly like the past soundtracks. Even the second movie had new arrangements compared to the first film.
Overall:
It was a good ending to the series. This movie gave me a lot of feels and I wasn’t going in expecting that. It felt like things came full circle and I am overall fine if they leave things as it is. If you been Pirates fan this whole time, I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to see this one. Oh, and I definitely recommend staying after the credits.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars