Tired retread of the same clichés

Rating: Null/10 (3 December 2018)

I think I'm done with this franchise. If they ever end up making a sixth film, I'll probably end up not seeing it out of sheer principle. It is a great shame to see a great franchise go out with a whimper, but it happens more often than you'd care to think.
So, once again we catch up with Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), who's up to his old tricks. Once again there are couple younger actors playing foil to him, setting him up for hijinks and jokes. And once again there's a sea-themed threat to oppose both him and all sailors in general. This time the villain is played by CGI string puppet made to look like Javier Bardem. They will try to tell you that Bardem himself was involved, but this is obviously a lie.
And I could get behind that. On Stranger Tides was not as good as the two previous films, and to talk about it and the original Pirates of the Caribbean in the same sentence is just sad, but it was good entertainment for what it was.
But alas, this film is neither funny nor entertaining. Jack Sparrow is perhaps more absentminded than ever. At least in previous films he had moments of cunning and savviness. Here, simple drunken drawling, nothing more. Furthermore, the villain has no depth and no presence due to the obvious CGI gimmickry. The locations are not that interesting. The young couple are not that interesting. And it's just so... slap-sticky. Sure, the previous films had outlandish fight scenes and sets, but at least you could kind of suspense your disbelief. In this travesty that goes out the window in the first action set piece. They're not even trying.
That being said, the film is more sad than it is outright awful. The music is still nice, there are a couple cool scenes and the world is still intriguing. I would not recommend this to any diehard Pirates fan, because it's such a letdown, but if you've merely liked the previous films, you might find something worth your while in this as well.