Review: Johnny Depp is uninspired as the Pirates Of the Caribbean franchise runs out of puff

REVIEW: Johnny Depp staggers and stumbles into the fifth Pirates Of the Caribbean film, but really, you’ve seen it all before.

DEAD men may indeed tell no tales, but dead film franchises will go right on tearing up tickets until audiences finally wise up.

This reckless reboot of the Pirates Of the Caribbean adventure-fantasy saga — number five, if you’ve lost count — is a spectacularly incoherent rehash of everything you kind of liked about the first one all those years ago.

As an added and unwelcome bonus, Dead Men Tell No Tales also re-purposes most of what you’d wished you’d forgotten about all the others.

A tired, uninspired Johnny Depp steps back into the boozy boots of Captain Jack Sparrow for more half-arsed high jinks on the high seas.

What was fresh and funny about Captain Jack when we first met him back in 2003 slipped the grasp of Depp some time ago.

Newcomers Kaya Scodelario and Brenton Thwaites fail to leave much of an impression in Pirates Of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. (Disney via AP)

It is becoming harder and harder to recall now, but there was a time when Depp’s reputation as one of the finest actors of his generation seemed invincible.

On the strength of the weak-willed work ethic the star of the show displays here, the good times won’t ever be coming back. For either Johnny Depp, or the spent force that is the POTC operation’s marquee character.

The moment has come for Captain Jack Sparrow to be given a one-way walk down the plank.

There was a time when Depp’s reputation as one of the finest actors of his generation seemed invincible. Not anymore.

The plotting of the Pirates movies has never been a strong suit of the series. If screenplays were decks of cards, a typical Pirates script just throws everything in the air, and lets the viewer make of it what they will.

Therefore extracting any tellable tale from Dead Men Tell No Tales requires some considerable effort to properly process. (I’m sure that if you cornered any featured actor from the movie and asked them to make sense of it, they would be just as stumped as any viewer.)

The prevailing vibe is busy, baffling and by-the-numbers, all at the same time.

Oscar-winner Javier Bardem plays the ghastly, ghostly Captain Salazar in Pirates Of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. (Disney via AP)

Let’s see. There is one ghastly ghost pirate (Javier Bardem). Two inconsequential young lovey-dovey types (Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario). Three hundred whiskery, wart-covered sailors who seem to be standing on the edge of every scene.

Linking all of this lamentable lot (and so many other unnecessary minor players) is the much-mentioned Trident of Poseidon, a mythical gizmo that reverses every ancient seafaring curse there ever was.

Some mesmerising FX-driven action sequences aside, the entire will-sapping experience of Dead Men Tell No Tales is like spending a night trapped inside a malfunctioning theme park ride.

If it didn’t clearly cost so much to make ($300 million!) you’d swear the whole exercise was a box-office Ponzi scheme to prevent Depp’s credit cards getting cancelled for another month or so.

Pirates Of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (M)

Directors: Joachim Ronning, Espen Sandberg

Starring: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario.

Rating: *1/2

Verdict: Not jolly. Just rogered.

Originally published as Review: Johnny Depp is uninspired as the Pirates Of the Caribbean franchise runs out of puff