National Post (National Edition)
The latest Pirates of the Caribbean is another joyless jaunt on the high seas.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
The Pirates of the Caribbean films have enjoyed a robust life as techdemo blu-rays queued up at Best Buy to show off highdefinition TVs and stateof-the-art surround-sound systems. Dead Men Tell No Tales, something like the 16th instalment of this apparently unending maritime franchise, will soon join its predecessors amidst the din of the home-theatre sales floor — another glorious exhibition of crystalline 1080p picture and roaring subwoofer bass.
Until then it simply occupies space at the multiplex, earning unjust millions for doing nothing more than showing up. It’s difficult to imagine this film inspiring happiness in anybody — not the executives who conceived the idea, not the artists and craftspeople who brought it to life, and certainly not the audiences resigned to endure it. The only good another Pirates could ever hope to do in this world is help a retail clerk sell a television.
The Pirates of the Caribbean films at one time aspired to amuse and delight. That seems an unimaginable ambition now. But isn’t that the appeal of a pirate, to a child? As children we find ourselves enchanted by the notion of all this wayward seafaring adventure: sailing with abandon and without inhibition, alive to possibility and mischievous intrigue. (Probably what we want is to feel we can embody that attitude to defy our bedtime.)
Dead Men Tell No Tales hasn’t the faintest residue of piratic thrill. It arouses no joy, no sense of daring. The prevailing register, instead, is indifference — the bonedeep dispassion of mediocrity. Hardly anything here impresses itself with any consequence. Great splendid ships cruise through the oceans with pro-forma digital ease. Swashbuckling is ventured by rote. At one point the seas literally part, rent asunder by the spear of Poseidon: it’s more likely to induce boredom than awe.
The Pirates of the Caribbean films are predictable by design, and this one is no different: an adventure is undertaken by water for arcane and boringly articulated reasons, and over its untenably protracted course — this one a scant 129 minutes, the shortest yet — treasure of MacGuffin-like significance will be pursued, villains of CGI-bolstered menace will duly glower, comic antics a mainstream British sitcom would consider too lowbrow will be indulged, and of course a certain Captain Jack Sparrow will imbibe, carouse, betray, blunder and ultimately prevail over the more level-headed foils who attempt once more to foil him.
In this case the MacGuffin will lift several interlocking curses simultaneously, which obliges characters from Pirates instalments past to return in what might be called fan-service — if this series had any fans. The villain who glowers is played by Javier Bardem, slumming, yet again, in a turn that suggests unpaid gambling debts or the desire to buy a much larger house.
The Pirates of the Caribbean films emerged at a time when Johnny Depp was considered a serious actor — indeed one of the most audacious and versatile working in Hollywood — and his performance as Sparrow, so famously inspired by Keith Richards, was considered further evidence of his ingenuity and range. Since 2003, needless to say, Depp has descended from the stratosphere of commercial success and (especially) critical acclaim: instead of making Jack Sparrow a onetime concession, he took up the role virtually full-time, abandoning the sorts of independent films and filmmakers that had made his career at one time interesting in order to pursue blockbuster whimsy exhaustively.
Today, Depp is such an irritating screen presence that one loathes to glimpse him on screen. That he should consider a return to this series after six years a way to endear himself to moviegoers again — after, it should be said, a litany of domestic abuse allegations that eradicated any shred of his remaining appeal — is telling. Pirates of the Caribbean is in large part what ruined Depp. We don’t need more Jack Sparrow. We need much, much less. ∂