Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho! A Pirates Life is not for me. It's getting pretty tiresome. This movie was just meh.

Rating: 7/10 (2 June 2017)

ARRRRGGHHH! This swashbuckling film is notorious for its troubled and chaotic production, involving multiple rewrites, injuries, recasts, and ransom affair with hackers. Although, the biggest problem, this movie had, was its main star, Johnny Depp, whom broke international laws, while filming this movie in Australia. Not only did, he breached the country's laws when he smuggle his dogs into the country, but Depp's bitter divorce from actress, Amber Heard put a black mark on the film, due to allegations for domestic abuse. This left Disney with doubt, on how bankability, Depp was, after his latest set of films underperformed at the box office. However, with 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tells No Tales'. It did prove that Depp's star power hasn't fade out yet, as the film is projection to gross a good amount of money for the franchise, international, despite domestic, the film's opening being below standards. Nevertheless, the film's total gross, compare to the other films in the franchise is still pretty low, and much of that, comes from the fact, that the film franchise has run out of ideas. The fatigue is very noticeable in this film. Without spoiling the movie, too much, the plot is pretty much, the same from the other films, just recycled and rewritten with new characters and locations, but yet have the same old McGuffin treasure hunt, with Deux Ex Machina, moments, sparkling, throughout it. This time, ruining the mythical of the previous movies. Some good examples of this, is how the movie, has Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and his crew being pursued by ghosts, yet again, this time, commanded by Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), a Spanish pirate hunter who seeks revenge on Sparrow, for leaving him to die in the Devil's triangle. I wouldn't mind, if this curse was related to the treasures from the first movie, as that, would make more sense, but instead, of that, this curse comes unannounced with little to no exposition, on how Armando is able to stay undead. Nor does the movie explain, why the compass, keep them, there in the first place. It get even more puzzling, when a plot point in the film, about 'betraying the compass,' releases them, all free, despite the fact that in the previous movies, Jack has lost, stolen or given his compass away to other people to use throughout the saga, having no mention of this. Another thing, this film shows the compass being given to Jack by somebody else, besides Tia Dalma (Naomi Harris) from 2006's 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest'. Even if she was still involve with the compass delivery. Are we to believe that, the goddess of the sea, was willing to keep ghost pirates hunters in bay, knowing full well, that it was the pirates lords that trap her in human form!? Another thing, the idea that Jack and his crew's only hope of stopping them is to find the mythical Trident of Poseidon that will be able to break all of the curses of the sea, seem a bit much. Are we to believe that compass can't hold them, back, anymore!? Also, wouldn't the destruction of the trident at the end of the film mean, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) would die, seeing how his heart was cut out, during the events of 2007's 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End'. I guess, death doesn't really matter in these films, seeing how, the after credit, pretty much, shows that, another character from a previous movie is being brought back. In my opinion, this is the straw that broke the camel's back. This movie makes no sense. Not only, did this movie kinda ruin the lore of the franchise, but it also kinda hurt the backstory of some of familiar characters. The idea of having one of the character, be related to Captain Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and him, sacrificing himself, felt a bit forced and out of character, knowing his history. Despite that, I have nothing bad to say, about the new youthful characters of Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) & Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) They were far better than the ones, established in 2011's 'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides'. I can say that. They were somewhat memorable. Even the other cameos in the film weren't so bad. However, I did think Depp was sleepwalking through this. It's clear to me, that he's getting really tired of this movie. For Bardem, I found his performance to be boring and never amounts to much more than a drooling wet mop full of ink stains. While, both leads were a disappointment, at least, I thought, the high production values were impressive. I did like, all the real life, set locations, they built. Also, the special effects, while, not the greatest, work for the film that was being made. However, I just hate that the movie has, too many action sequences set, during the night, filmed in pitch black darkness with barely noticeable ghost. It made for a very hard to see, movie at times. Even, the action scenes shot in the day, were a bit jarring, due to the film, not understanding how physics work and it's ripping off, action sequences ideas from mediocre films like 2011's 'Fast Five'. At least, the musical score by composer Geoff Zanelli was great to hear, even if it's not Hans Zimmler on the wheel. Overall: For a film franchise that started out as joke, based on a Disneyland theme park ride. I have to say, it had a good run. While this film is probably not the best movie to end the series, with, but I have to say, it's time for it to end. Any future films will never quite manages to recapture the magic that launched this film series to such stratospheric heights back in 2003. It's truly time, for Jack to sail into retirement. I'm sorry, but in the end, this movie was just mediocre, at best.