Saw it yesterday. It was…........passable. There was a few genuinely funny lines, and some cool moments and performances - just enough to outweigh the sheer awful, which pushed me very close to calling this a colossal turd.
The best thing about the movie is the three male leads. Barbossa steals the show as always and remains almost entirely in character. Blackbeard is intimidating. Jack actually seems competent some of the time, my god, and not like the total bufoon he was in 3.
But be warned, the screenplay for this thing is ATROCIOUS. The dialogue is often insipid, the whole thing is overwritten and needlesly complicated, and characters behave dumbfoundingly nonsensical. I actually had to stop myself thinking about the various plot threads of the movie lest the whole thing completely fell apart, because I really wnated to give this movie a chance. But if you even begin to criticise some of the plot points in this movie, believe me, it will crash like a house of cards.
The legitimately good:
! Mermaids. The fight with them was the highlight of the entire film, since they were genuinely intimidating.
! Their reinterpretation of the Fountain of youth was interesting.
! No Orlando and Keira! YAY!
The stuff I hated:
! Penelope Cruz was annoyng as hell. I never bought her and Jacks supposed feelings, and she never came across as how tough she wanted to be. And her motivation was dumb as shit.
! Orlando and Keira mark 2 should NOT have been there. Seriously, just change it to them needing the scale of a mermaid, doesn't have to be fresh, and cut out those two characters entirely. Shaves off a nice chunk of the running time too.
! The allegiance of BBs crew. This was my personal biggest annoyance; these guys don't like Teach. They were conned into fighting for him. He used them as mermaid bait. They tried mutiny. By any logic the only ones loyal to Teach should be the Zombies and Cruz. Yet they still fight for him till the end!?! The fuck?!?!!
The flat out hilarious:
! Hacking at barrels taking out a whole regiment of guards. "Oh no! Liquid sprays in my face! I must make a pratfall!"
! The two guys completely oblivious to Jack standing on the board they're carrying
! Fucking FLAMETHROWERS ON A WOODEN PIRATE SHIP
And the very funniest :
! The guy who just, upon hearing that he's headed for mermaid waters, screams "ABANDON SHIP!" and just throws himself off it. In the middle of the fucking ocean. Just like that. What the fuck was he thinking? Is he going to swim back to england now? HILARIOUS