Ten Times Better than I Expected!

Rating: 2/10 (2 June 2017)

The Pirates films have had an odd history. Curse of the Black Pearl is clearly the best. Dead Man's Chest isn't too bad. At Worlds End is a confusing mess but it does have some good moments. And On Stranger Tides was such a trainwreck I'm still surprised it grossed over 1 billion dollars. Seriously, you cannot tell me the plot of On Stranger Tides without looking it up. So I went into this one cautiously optimistic. It could very well suck, but hey, it could be fun! The last 40 or so minutes of At Worlds End made up for some of the stupidness, maybe this could do the same. And... wait, there's no stupidness this time? Sweet!
This movie doesn't waste time with talking, useless subplots that go nowhere, weird pirate objects and old sailor's tales to tell the "plot" like in the previous two Pirates films. It cuts straight to the action and humor and holds on those two things for as long as possible without resorting to plot. There is some good plot and the movie does have the guts to kill someone off (who that is, well... DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES HEHEHEHEH), but thank GOD for making it so it isn't explained in 10 minute long sequences that go nowhere. In fact, there's so little actual discussion in the movie that it makes it the absolute shortest Pirates film! At just 2 hours and 6 minutes, it's MERCIFULLY short, even shorter than Curse of the Black Pearl!
Johnney Depp is as good as ever, and all the other cast is good as well. There isn't any Will Turner or anyone like that to derail the plot (well there's still Barbosa and Will's new son trying to break his father's curse), and the writing is still on point! Even with On Stranger Tides being a convoluted and stupid mess, there was still good lines and humor. Here, we get that and then some.
The new villain is surprisingly cool. Salazar (SLYTHERIN) has some good personality, backstory, and even a cool design. He's no Davy Jones, but to be fair Davy Jones is pretty "eh" villain material anyways.
I did have some problems. The mystical artifact the characters are trying to find this time around is Retcon-The Plot Device. It breaks every curse of the sea... except for the sequel curse it seems. It also, as the name implies, retcons the previous four movies out of existence. Not by saying they didn't happen, but by simply removing the curses that plagued those movies from existence. Like the Flying Dutchman and its crew are now regular people and such. Which is pretty stupid. That and some of the action seems... weak. There's a good scene where Jack is fighting off some zombie sharks (it's fiction!) and another where Jack is constantly about to be beheaded by a Guillotine, but at the same time when Jack actually fights Salazar, it's... kinda boring. When Salazar gets his hands on Retcon-The Plot Device, he just waves it around and Jack is thrown around with some admittedly decent effects. And... that's it. The side characters are the ones that end this conflict.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this one fine. For a Pirates of the Caribbean film, this was actually great! For a film that stands on its own... eh, not so much.