AKA Salazar's Revenge! Which I really thought this one was titled... he's the villain. A good one, too. A new sinister shade of the undead...
How ever did Jack Sparrow lose his place as main character within his own movies though? Suddenly he's the hopeless sidekick - at best more like a counselor than a captain, and there's not just one main character couple, but two, of which he's part of neither.
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The bank heist at the beginning, the crew breaking up, his luck running out on him again, and two new characters appearing that are set to stir things up... as well as an old nemesis... it all feels highly familiar. It's like I've seen this before. It's like the prequel, and more than one before it.
It's not that I don't like the adventure, the pompous theme song, the pirate barter or the staggering special effects... I even got pretty emotional in the very final moments when Barbosa does what he does (makes me change my opinion on his character entirely), but when it's all said and done it feels like I just watched the same old movie one more time.
It's not new. They bring in one more myth - each time all the mightier to replace the old one, and then send the main mismatched cast (after in the last moment saving some uncertain someone(s) from a certain death) on a cat and goose chase to reach it, within limited time frame, in that fail-safe formula we now know as: Pirates of the Caribbean.
Some may say the series is back on track, and yes... it really is on the same track as always. Always good, but also awfully inconsistent and uncreative. The best days of POTC are those that were... even if this might have been the best one in a while now. They do add in some conclusivity with the ending, and links to earlier elements left unexplained (the compass), but at the same time it takes away a bit of the mystery, and it feels like the dive into backstory and history is more to appease the viewers than because that was actually what they had planned. After so many spin-off's and side-stories suddenly their back at Jack's roots, and ready to reveal how he first became who he is, with the villain to match? It's a bit late for that now.
I enjoyed this, but was hoping some things would be new, yet that old things wouldn't be cast out with the tide to make way for them, all the while maintaining this aging tradition...
rated 3/5: not bad
