Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Here is my review of the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Men Tell No Tales.  I wrote this in an informal voice like a writer would in a magazine like Rolling Stones, Premier, Interview.  Carina, the female character in the movie, has a little physical resemblance to me.  My next post will have an epic poem to the symphony music from the movie soundtrack.  Stay tuned!

Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Men Tell No Tales.  2017



Generation Xers knows who Johnny Depp is.  Generation Ys knows who Johnny Depp is.  And Millenials knows Depp’s films.  Audiences know him from two forms of entertainment:  T.V. and the movies.  I know him from his 21 Jump Street days when he graced the covers of virtually every teeny bopper, a teen heart throb for millions of young girls —and myself included.  Every teeny bopper magazines in the late 1980s to early 1990s had Johnny Depp on their covers.  Depp is aware of this.  He mentioned in interviews it has made him uncomfortable.  He felt uncomfortable being made out into merchandise for young American consumers, a marketing device engineered for shoppers, particularly targeted to young girls.  But that is all the reasons he is even more irresistible.

 

 I stopped to watch a trailer of Johnny Depp in the movie Cry Baby where a tiny teardrop gently rolls on his face.  Yes, my commute to my elementary school had to be put on hold for myself as an eleven-year-old girl.  His face lures you in and watches him . . . a little longer.  His is not a typical Hollywood breed — take a look at his ethnic features behind the face that stands out from the blondes and the blue-eyed actors.  He is exotic.  Don’t believe me?  Watch him in his early roles and you will see his charms, even under a heavy makeup in Edward Scissorhands.

  

So Johnny stands out on screen.  Perhaps it was his role in Edward Scissorhands that drew me to him as a movie-goer.  He makes sensitivity look —devastatingly sexy.  Convincing in his role, Depp plays an outsider with large metal scissors hands, a gentle boy nonetheless who is wary of his enlarged hands that can cut his leading female star, Winona Ryder with just a snip of his metal scissors.  Scissorhands carves out beautiful ice sculptures for his female lead, a large block of ice which he shaves down, forming a furry of snow crystals which slowly float down to the ground, a captivating snapshot of their first big  on-screen romance.  And he goes on to trim his neighbors’ landscapes with his talented hands— hedges, shrubs, and trees on the front lawns of his neighbors.  Directed by Tim Burton, Johnny and Burton makes a good team. 

  

But there came a time when Depp was missing from the small and the big screen.  Where was he?  He had small parts (here and there), but not a big hit that would make teenage girls cry for him like in his 21 Jump Street days.  And if you are not a Generation Xer, try to visually equate Johnny Depp in the 1980s to 1990s to a present day young heart throb —somewhere around Josh Hartnett.  These young actors make young female fans think their body smells of sweet roses.  (Harnett once said, “My butt don’t smell of roses.”)  Then as he nears his middle age, he gets a pivotal role of Captain Jack Sparrow in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean.  I have been on the Pirates of the Caribbean—the ride at Disney World in Florida!  (The water ride at Disney World is a cool, refreshing ride for kids and adults.  And not too risqué for kids plus you don’t get too wet after the ride.)  The role of Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean catapulted Johnny Depp back in business —onto the big screen as part of a big blockbuster hit with young audiences.  This role put him back in the map.  Pirates of the Caribbean, a big budget movie with successive sequels is one of the big film franchises.  So now we arrive for the fifth installation of Pirates of the Caribbean.  I looked forward to the fifth one and Johnny in the storyline.

Johnny Depp in 21 Jump Street

 

Modeled after rock-star Keith Richards, Depp plays a pirate who acts oddly and slightly drunk in his mannerisms, but he carries the role with charm and natural comedic timing.  Depp had previous comedic role as Charlie Chaplin, a silent comedic actor, and as Edward Burns, a former Hollywood director.  Slightly odd and eccentric, Depp pulled them off effortlessly.  But it is Depp’s interpretation of Jack Sparrow’s and his well-contrived slurring speech and drunkard swagger that captivate the audience.  If Jack Sparrow was well-groomed and clean-shaven with debonair charms that typically hook female audiences, they may not be all that engaged nor interested in Captain Jack Sparrow.  Depp’s interpretation of Captain Jack Sparrow makes Pirates of the Caribbean franchise worthy for movie-goers.  Blockbuster movies and his rightful leading star interest movie audiences in seeing the movie.  Depp was enough to have for ticket holders to check out the movie, and mix it up with hot female supporting roles, you get a formula for successful movie franchise!

      

Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow

The fifth installation of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Dead Men Tell No Tales have new characters in store for works —a younger male and female protagonists.  The younger male, Henry, who is Will’ son, is determined to resolve his father’s curse that forbids him to walk on land.  The cursed are bind to the sea, and they conquer the depths of the sea, while haunting seafarers by taking charge of the ocean.  Dead ghosts on board a ship set sail out into the sea, but they cannot go on land without eviscerating into black dust.  Javier Bardem plays Captain Armando Salazar of the Spanish army, now dead after his encounter with a young Jack Sparrow years ago while on board his ship Silent Mary.  New female protagonist in Dead Men Tell No Tales has Carina Smyth acted by Kaya Scodelario, a woman of science who is accused of witchcraft.  Not a witch, Carina is nonetheless a woman who is “academically inclined,” and deciphers a journal given to her by her father, a map which leads to the Trident of Poseidon.  Only in make-believe can we conjure up terms like Trident of Poseidon.  One of the reasons I like Disney movies.  Others include a blood moon which leads to a treasure both sought by Carina and Henry.  Carina meets Henry at the hospital where she unscrews his lock —helping him, setting him free as a captive of the British army.  At the beginning of the film, the scene changes on land from Carina at a shop, and then zooms onto Jack Sparrow, who is in the midst of escaping British soldiers, but has been caught red-handed while robbing a bank.  Sparrow is introduced comically in the scene, where he is found dozed off from a comatose sleep as he was robbing the bank, but has passed out safely inside the bank’s safe filled with gold.  The bank has been harnessed to a four-horse carriage and the entire building moves to the horse power pulled by these four horses, and —dang—we have the first attention-grabbing action sequence which keeps the viewers riveted.  Sparrow rides on top of the bank’s roof as he flees the British army by horse powers that pull the entire building on the streets.  Sparrow manages to escape the British soldiers; subsequently, he escapes troops despite his inebriated state from rum and other alcoholic drinks.  The viewer gets a sense that Carina, Henry, and Jack will come together on a voyage —a voyage out to sea that later unravels as the quest to find the Trident of Poseidon from a map that no man can read.

An epic scene at the end of the film concludes the storyline:  The pirates, dead ghosts, protagonists find the location where the Trident of Poseidon looms.  Carina, Henry, and Captain Barbossa of the ghosts of dead Spanish fleet arrive at the location that has been covered in large rocky terrains in the midst of the deep depths of the sea.  Carina finds the rubies on the rocky land which precisely matches the ruby on her journal.  The rubies form together a light —a fiery red laser beam light—out onto the ocean where the ocean divides in half, supremely.  At the ocean’s abyss to its waves, the parting of the sea is a Biblical scene from the scriptures of Moses.  Audiences have seen special effects; hence it is not anything new, but I see action for their special effects. 

 

A struggle occurs between the protagonist and Salazar as he takes possession of the trident.  Carina and Henry join to solve the riddle —break the trident to break the curses of the sea.  And soon after, the curse has been broken, and the ocean reverts to its previous form as the waters cave in—flooding the parted section of the sea and the people in them.  The Spanish ghosts curse breaks—leaving them not on board the Black Pearl but inside the deep sea.   

           

The good news:  Carina, Henry and Jack Sparrow make it on board.  And then, a symphony plays in the background, celebrating Captain Jack Sparrow’s triumph.  Henry meets his father, the Dutchman, which is accompanied by a sweeping symphonic background.  Hence Will (acted by Orlando Bloom) walks on land after the curse had been broken.  And that sums up a story where the power of imagination comes into fruition on the big screen; so look out for more magic of make-believe in Disney.