Geoffrey Rush takes the role as Barbossa in the each of the five films.
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Directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg previously showed creative sea legs with 2012’s Oscar nominated Kon-Tiki, dramatizing Thor Heyerdahl’s raft crossing of the Pacific Ocean.
The Pirates of the Caribbean’s cast is solid as a whole.
When Jack learns that Carina, Henry, and Salazar all need him //em to find an important prize (Poseidon/u0027s Trident), Captain Sparrow has all the reason he needs to rope his wayward crew back in, with new promise of adventure and treasure.
The first order of business in “Tales” is to set up that one-time series hero Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) is still bound by a curse to captain the damned ship Flying Dutchman, the dark magic taking a visibly physical toll on him. Still with me? They’re accompanied by Carina (Kaya Scodelario), a young scientist who’s been persecuted as a witch (the movie gets an undue amount of mileage out of pirates leeringly misunderstanding her saying she’s a “horologist”).
Hollywood uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer has finally revealed just how – and why – The Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney ended up getting a cameo in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge” (in cinemas 25 May).
They play duelling pirates, with Rush as one-legged Captain Hector Barbossa and Depp the rascal Captain Jack Sparrow. The story moves very fast.
Henry is also driven toward Jack when he meets the evil ghost pirate Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem)/, who’s looking for Jack.
Bardem is an excellent actor, but his presence is lost here, masked beneath the heavy CGI of his character and an effects-laden voice that is often unintelligible.
As of this writing, the sequel has a 33% on Rotten Tomatoes, with many critics bemoaning Depp’s uninspired performance and the rehashed plot. It’s cool to see a digitally de-aged Depp and how his iconic character came to acquire his hat, hair beads and that compass everybody still wants.
There’s an engaging flashback with a young Jack Sparrow, which explains both Salazar’s hate for him and Jack’s origin. Watching it feels like reading a recipe attempting to replicate what made these films appealing in the first place.
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“After this fifth episode, you’ll wish Disney would just declare the franchise dead and tell no more tales”, Kennedy wrote. We always love great characters. (It’s about 50 minutes shorter than the interminable “At World’s End.”) From a ridiculous and wildly entertaining bank robbery scene early on when the entire bank, i.e., the building itself, is taken, through a thrilling finale involving a “Ten Commandments”-style parting of the waters, “Dead Men Tell No Tales” might as well have been titled, “Go Big or Go Home”. It’s full of thrills, laughs and, yes, even a touch of emotion. Every summer, I make a YouTube playlist of my favorites that acts as my own personal radio station because frankly, sometimes, I vibe more to how the trailer is cut than the music in it or, in bad cases, the movies themselves when I finally catch them on-screen.
