Let’s be honest: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a mess. But it’s a fun mess.
The Good:
The Bad:
The Ugly:
Years after the events of the original films, a vengeful Spanish-born Royal Navy officer-turned-ghost, Captain Armando Salazar, escapes the Devil’s Triangle with a mission: kill every pirate at sea — beginning with Jack Sparrow. Jack, perpetually one step away from disaster, finds himself hunted and bankrupt. He crosses paths with two new characters: Henry Turner, a determined young sailor desperate to break his father Will Turner’s curse, and Carina Smyth, a brilliant and fiercely independent astronomer with a secret connection to the sea and to Jack himself. Together they pursue the legendary Trident of Poseidon, the one object capable of breaking sea-born curses, while Salazar closes in.
The most controversial decision in Dead Men Tell No Tales was sidelining Jack Sparrow in his own franchise. Here, Jack is not the hero. He’s a washed-up, drunken mess who accidentally triggers the plot. The real heroes are Henry Turner and Carina Smyth.
Henry Turner is the son every fan wanted to see. Idealistic, brave, and desperate to reunite his parents (yes, Elizabeth Swann has a cameo at the end). Brenton Thwaites does earnest well, though he lacks the roguish charm of Orlando Bloom’s Will. Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales...
Carina Smyth is the standout. Kaya Scodelario brings intelligence and fire. She’s a woman of science in a world of superstition, constantly correcting men who call her a witch. Her subplot—searching for her unknown father—builds to the film’s most emotional twist: she is the daughter of Captain Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush).
Yes, that Barbossa. The villain-turned-antihero-turned-comic-relief. The revelation that the ornery, greedy pirate is Carina’s father (he left her a baby to protect her from his enemies) gives Geoffrey Rush his most poignant moment since At World’s End.
Dead Men Tell No Tales revisits core franchise themes: the cost of vengeance, the power of love and legacy, and the allure of freedom. It adds a generational angle (children of past heroes seeking to fix their parents’ legacies) that creates a bittersweet tone beneath the spectacle. The film ultimately favors redemption over nihilism, leaning into the idea that some curses can be broken not just by artifacts but by choices and reconciliation. Let’s be honest: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a mess
By [Author Name]
For fourteen years, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise sailed on nothing but rum, roguish charm, and the anarchic energy of one Captain Jack Sparrow. But by 2017, the tide had turned. Dead Men Tell No Tales (directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg) arrived with a ghostly galleon, a zombified crew, and the weight of a billion-dollar legacy on its shoulders.
The result? A spectral blockbuster that looks spectacular but feels hollow—a film that proves, once and for all, that some curses shouldn’t be resurrected. The Bad: