Moments to treasure
THE third and fourth voyages of the Pirates Of The Caribbean saga, At World’s End and On Stranger Tides, sprung leaks in their ramshackle screenplays and capsized under the weight of feverish expectation.
After a six-year hiatus for long overdue repairs, the blockbusting series sets sail with two new directors at the helm – Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg – and Johnny Depp swabbing the decks in his familiar guise as salty seadog Jack Sparrow.
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge is a marked improvement and anchors the outlandish action to solid performances from two charismatic young actors, Kaya Scodelario and Brenton Thwaites, with simmering on-screen chemistry.
Depp continues to ply his comic schtick with wide-eyed gusto and Spanish actor Javier Bardem, who collected an Oscar for his chilling turn in No Country For Old Men, is a lip-smacking phantasmagorical villain from the watery underworld. Action sequences are spectacular, including the hysterically overblown theft of a bank safe and a dizzying dance of death between Jack and a guillotine blade.
The fifth chapter has its pleasures but it’s not all plain sailing. The return of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and another original character is misjudged, a central plot thread is disappointingly similar to another summer blockbuster, and the 129-minute running time feels excessive.
A superfluous cameo for Paul McCartney as a fellow pirate also should have walked the gangplank.
A little Depp goes a long way in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge. He makes merry with his treasure chest of physical pratfalls and garbled one-liners.
Their film is advertised as the “final” adventure and it would be sensible to drop the mainsail here while the series is still buoyant.