Poor character development left a hallow shell

Rating: 5/10 (7 September 2017)

The premise was fine, the special effects were good, and the flash backs were interesting however the film suffered from poor directing. The scenes simply didn't flow well despite being filled with interesting tidbits about Jacks history and the possible consequences of the ending. I think the big problem was character development. In the 1st movie, the characters had a lot of quality scenes whereas in this one they had equal time but the scenes were not great or memorable. For example, in the 1st movie we had that great fight scene between Jack and Will filled with comedy and purpose. In this one, the only scene Henry had that was remotely interesting was at the beginning when tried to locate his dad but the problem is that the scene was simply dumb. He basically committed suicide simply to say hi to dad. It was not reasonable and it certainly did not make me like Henry in any way like I liked Will in the 1st. Elizabeth Swan also had a better story than Carina who was largely a wimpy version of Elizabeth and although she is supposedly smart, she did not come off as such as her only purpose in the entire movie is to point a ship in a direction and that is all. She served no other purpose and her romance with Henry was not convincing. Lastly, and possibly the biggest problem, Jack was not funny... actually, I cant remember a funny scene in this movie which is a huge let down. They tried to crack a few jokes here and there but they were not good. I also felt like Jack played practically no part in the movie aside from making it things harder than they should have been. In fact, this movie did not need Jack Sparrow at all. He didn't have any smart tricks up his sleeves, nor did he contribute much of anything and Salazars hate of Jack felt as empty as Henry and Carina's romance. It simply made no sense.
Overall, id say its an average movie. Nothing worth watching more than once, and certainly not worth the price of admission but its better than straight to TV movies and certainly better than movies like the Ninja Turtles debacle or the lousy Transformer movies.