That was pretty mediocre. The pacing was fine, Bardem's Salazar was an enjoyable villian, and some of the imagery during action and locations were cool, but overall the stakes felt non-existent, the jokes fell flat (especially the witch one), and the finale was quite underwhelming compared to the rest of the movie and franchise
But after rewatching the first movie last night, the biggest flaw was Jack. On my rewatch, what suprised me most was how cool a character Jack was. His wild antics and personality often came across as a front, a diversion, to charm or get people to underestimate and dismiss him, but he always proved that under that was a guy who was always scheming, planning, double-crossing. He was clever, wily, and actually an effective pirate who could swing a situation to his advantage through skill and guile
Here, he was just a clumsy drunk, stumbling along with the plot. It was disappointing to see what Jack Sparrow had evolved (or devolved) into since the first movie
This largely echoes my thoughts.
This movie rises above the dullness of On Stranger Tides and avoids the needless convolution of At World's End, but still never feels nearly as cool or as fun as the first two movies. It's just sort of there. Nothing all that memorable about it outside of a few neat effects and two pretty fun set pieces.
Jack is definitely handled very wrong in this thing. He slurs every word (To the point where I often couldn't understand him) and never seems to have any idea what's happening. He's less a lovable, oafish rogue, and just some comic relief idiot who occasionally pulls out a sword. I think it's pretty telling that every sword fight Jack has in the movie is filled with his cowardly squeals and winces as he fights. Compare that to his fighting
Barbossa in CotBP, or
Davy Jones himself in AWE. That swashbuckling courage and smarmy smartassness combined with his goofy weirdness is what made him great. The series needs to remember that.
Depp seems to have a sudden complete lack of physicality. In the bank robbery scene, it's very noticeable how slow and stiff he is, and there are numerous hard-cuts to obvious stunt doubles. I don't think he got
that old in the time between films. I'm guessing with the stuff coming out about his personal life, his heart might not have been in this one. Hell, at times I was thinking he might have actually been drunk.
New characters are entirely forgettable.
Villains were alright, but the McGuffin was poorly utilized. They keep saying it's the end-all, be-all of treasure, and that it can control the seas, but there's no real information about it, and they break it after a few minutes, only using it to part the waters for a sword fight. That's pretty lame. So, does Poseidon exist in this universe? Is he still alive? What else could that trident do? Guess we'll never know.
So, yeah. Mediocre, but the sequels could put things back on the right track. Resurrecting Davy Jones in the sequel tease is a smart move.
Honestly, this series needs Gore back.