Nail in coffin

Rating: 2/10 (13 September 2017)

All in all, the fifth instalment of POTC is a sorry spectacle. The bafflingly high user rating here on IMDb seems to speak to the low standards of today's audience. If this film adds to the quality of someone's life, it must be an awful life to begin with.
Pros: When it comes to filming locations and technology, POTC 5 is as good as its predecessors. Beautiful landscapes and colours. Awesome effects. Without a doubt, Disney has nailed CGI and post- processing.
Cons: 1) The story is part predictable and otherwise boring. The first 50 or so minutes represent a mixture of things that we have seen in previous instalments, pure insult. The rest of the film boils down to yet another oh-so-powerful pirate artefact, but one so uninteresting that one's attention and intellect, already numb from the first half of the movie, simply walk out. 2) The acting is altogether terrible, not a single cast member performs memorably. Johnny Depp has lost all charm and wittiness, Sparrow's lines are painfully flat, goofy, and cringy. Not once did he induce even just a chuckle. Geoffrey Rush equally feels like a mere shadow of his former self. Javier Bardem's character fails to make an impression as well. The two newbies Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario are OK-ish but not great.
Technological competence cannot compensate for lack of story, lack of direction, and lack of acting. POTC 5 is such a spectacular failure that even a free ticket would not justify the movie's consumption.