We spent a quiet end to the evening with a film the other night.

Pirates of the Caribbean 5 (Dead Men Tell No Tales) (Revenge of Salazar).

Released last year and again starring Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow.

We were really looking forward to it.

Just a few minutes in, I’d come to a conclusion – He needs to be killed off before they start Pirates of the Caribbean 6.
Maybe a short pre-release or something might do the trick. Jack is a great character that is slowly being destroyed by Depp. He has moved from the funny, get out of trouble character, to The Mad Hatter played by him in Alice in Wonderland.

He is bad, really BAD. Where’s that Kracken when you need it?

We want Jack back – the ‘real’ Jack Sparrow, the swashbuckling, cool, amusing, clever and lucky, drunk, Jack. Not the bumbling alcoholic – which, if you think about it is not funny.

The new lead actors are Brenton Thwaites – Henry Turner (was he picked because he’s Australian? They got a massive tax incentive to film in Australia) and Kaya Scodelario (Carina) who is already signed up for No6.

The only reason Brenton is even in the film is to give a reason for the very short appearance of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. They both probably agreed to appear in all Pirates of the Caribbean films and now don’t want to anymore. Convenient 3 minutes, hardly worth two lots of costume each.

Henry is a poor and shallow character, and you never get chance to really like as an older lad (the youngster had more get-up-and-go about him). He is only used to knit some parts of the film together. It does need fixing together but he wasn’t the right person for the job.

Kaya Scodelario – Carina Smyth – gets a great part and her role is well-played, if a little wooden in places. I really can’t see Henry (Brenton) falling in love with her. They never even look each other in the eye, never mind develop the chemistry necessary to fall for each other. He is just interested in anything with petite ankles. She is just about the only woman in 95% of the film.

Some of the scenes were unbelievable, even in the suspension of disbelief that this film is. In one scene, Henry is in a hospital bed, and is visited by Scodelario’s character – first, the British of that time wouldn’t bother putting a prisoner in a hospital. Second, how did Carina know that he had some information she needed and why did she go and visit him in the hospital?

The film is severely lacking something – chemistry. The relationship between the film and the writers is crucial and this film doesn’t have it.

What’s good about the film.

The sets are fantastic and most of the CGI looks good. They probably spent half the budget on the first 15 minutes. The make-up department also did a fantastic job.

Others in the film.

Javier Bardem plays Captain Salazar the main baddie in the film. OK part, but nothing special and difficult to understand at times.

Geoffrey Rush is back as Captain Barbosa. Good part but with unnecessary, over the top sets.

Apart from the bad acting and bad story, the film is very dark, both in filming and story. The first films had a good story line with lots of great characters and daft, funny antics. Not anymore.

To say it took several people 6 years to write and re-write this film, I’d say it needed another 6.