Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge

Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge

Released: May 2017

Starring: Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Geoffrey Rush, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario

Director: Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg

The apparent final outing for Captain Jack, sees a return for many of our favourite characters from the first instalment, but can they still pull out a swashbuckling adventure like Curse of the Black Pearl?
_____________________________________________________________________________

So, after a break of six years, Capt’n Jack (Depp) is back for a fifth (and supposedly final) adventure on the seven seas and he’s back with plenty of familiar faces, with a couple of new ones too. His hiatus from the big screen can certainly be felt too; our beloved Jack has clearly spent more time drinking rum than sailing the oceans. He is a little more confused and bumbling than the Jack we have seen before; is it possible that he has lost his edge?

His customary grand entrance [we can all remember the high bar of his sinking-boat antics from The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)] is somewhat less enthralling this time out, waking up, drunk in a vault. That said, the equally traditional escape from massed guards is as fun as always, if not necessarily as spectacular.

One thing is clear though; Jack’s off screen antics clearly haven’t been sitting well with his crew, who, following what is clearly the latest in a long line of cock-ups, promptly leave Jack to his own means.

I can’t say for sure whether Jack is meant to feel so ring rusty, or if, just maybe, Johnny Depp doesn’t quite fit into the costume like he used to, with the weight of his own personal daemons is (metaphorically) stretching the seams, holding him back from fully embracing his most popular persona. In fact, the opening half an hour doesn’t feel like a Pirates film at all, it feels more like a tragic homage to Depp’s much publicised struggles, with his drunken antics possibly a little too close to a reality than perhaps they once might have seemed.

It is in this opening half an hour that all these uncomfortable issues are in their sharpest focus. Here, Jack has to find his feet in a hostile world, tired of his behaviour [what do they say about life imitating art?]. It is also in this opening half an hour where, although plenty happens, it feels like a very slow start. Is it just that our star isn’t shining as brightly as usual, or is it just that the whole opening is slow and clunky? Instead of being a wonderful building block for the forthcoming film, it is essentially just a chopping board for the ingredients of the story to come.

But if the opening half hour is the chopping board, it all very quickly moves into the mixing bowl and the oven afterwards. We jump from action scene to action scene at a rate of knots, with only short sequences between to tie the story together. It might sound like a hodgepodge way to make a film, but somehow it just about works.

When you watch Salazar’s Revenge you are struck with a sense of familiarity. But not the lovely kind, like when you get home after a business trip. More like the kind the following morning when the cat is screaming at you because it’s 5am and it’s hungry. You’d be right to feel this too. In fact, you could even call it deja-vu. Because if you have seen the previous Pirates of the Caribean films, you have pretty much already seen this one. What has successfully been done is a rehash of the best bits of the previous films, balled into one final roll of the dice. In fact, that’s essentially what this is; a greatest hits album!

Track 1: Awkward lad called Turner swooning over the well to do girl; Track 2: Undead bad guys chasing after Jack; Track 3: Fighting in an other worldly location for an ancient artefact; Track 4: A daring escape from a ships’ prison [oh yes!]; Track 6: Bizarre curses hat haunt the seas; Track 7: Cameo from musical royalty as one of Jack’s relatives; Track 8: Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly on the cast list.

Despite consisting of a glorified highlights reel, it all feels formulaic at times. Perhaps the only way the writers could find to stitch the parts together in the end was with very obvious black nylon thread, taking the path of least resistance, but there aren’t many parts where the sequence isn’t exactly what everyone thought would happen already. From the little bits here and there, straight through to the big twist and turns. At times, you can almost hear Randy Meeks telling us the rules of the film [what do you mean “Who is Randy Meeks?”; he’s obviously the legend in the first three Scream films, played by Jamie Kennedy, who recites the formulaic rules that the films follow! No, that reference isn’t too obscure! Nuts to you!]

Though it may me a touch obvious, there is enough story kicking about to keep you interested (and even if it doesn’t, there’s sure to be a sword or two swishing about before too long). The main story focuses on Jack’s long lost nemesis, Captain Salazar (Bardem). Salazar is an interesting character and played well by Bardem, but you can’t help shake the feeling that he’s terribly derivative. Like the film itself. He’s a mash-up of different Pirates antagonists of the past, with a sprinkling of original content. The most original content is played out in a flashback to his evil origins, which double up as the moment that Capy’n Jack was born. A lovely bit of content, yes, but not one that particularly adds any real material to the film itself. The secondary storyline, the awkward romance between Henry (Thwaites) and Carina (Scodelario), is so formulaic that science teachers are writing it in textbooks, but it does help move what plot there is forward, as (obviously) it dovetails with the main storyline, helping to push us to our conclusion.

All in all, this doesn’t hit the early heights of the series, but it certainly isn’t a new low point. It is enjoyable and entertaining, if somewhat predictable at times. If this is to be the final instalment in the Pirates series, then we’ll be parting ways on a nostalgic note, rather than a spectacular one, but a certainly enjoyable note, like a D#.

_____________________________________________________________________________

🌟🌟🌟 3 Stars

_____________________________________________________________________________

I loved

It’s nice to see the origins of Captain Jack Sparrow, getting a glimpse into his finest of moments.

As far as nostalgic trips go, it’s good to see the band’s original line-up take to the stage, one last time.

Pet Peeve

Seeing a young Jack Sparrow is well and good and I can understand the digital facelift they gave to Johnny Depp (pasted onto a younger body), but why, oh why was his current voice dubbed in too? It sounds very odd, a young face with a middle-aged voice falling from its mouth.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, it’s not particularly original. Some good ideas are smattered in with stuff that’s worked in the past, but is starting to feel tired now. A little more time and thought, could have dodged this, giving us something more well-rounded, instead of this lumpy pillow case.