“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” was released on May 26. It is the fifth installment in the franchise, and once again stars Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow and Orlando Bloom as Will Turner. It also stars Javier Bardem as Captain Salazar, Kaya Scodelario as Carina Smyth, Brenton Thwaites as Henry Turner and Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa,The plot follows all of these characters on a quest to find a magic item, the Trident of Poseidon, as it holds the power to control the Ocean and all of the curses that lie upon it. Young Henry Turner seeks the Trident to undo the curse of the Flying Dutchman that plagues his father, Will Turner. The only way that he can find the Trident is with the help of Jack Sparrow and his magic compass. Carina Smyth is the only woman who can read “the Map that no man can read,” based off of Galileo’s diary left to her by her father when he left her at an orphanage, and she too searches for the Trident because she believes it’s what her father was looking for. Captain Barbossa searches for the trident as well, as he is being hunted down by the infamous Captain Salazar. Captain Salazar wants the Trident to get his revenge on Jack Sparrow and rule the sea. Years ago, Salazar was a Spanish captain who hunted down and killed dozens of pirate ships, until he was fatally tricked by a young Sparrow. He and his crew were  cursed to haunt the Devil’s Triangle until Jack gave  up his magic compass (which he did for a bottle of rum). Now that he is free, he leads his ghostly crew to hunt down all Pirates and find Jack to take his revenge.

The movie once again entertains its audience with thrilling action scenes and hilarious situations. The movie has a lot of comedy  that Sparrow is famous for. The action scenes also have higher stakes, whether it be an entire bank being robbed by having a horse drawn carriage drag it through the city, or battling for a trident between a parted sea. The film will entertain audiences for the entire adventure.

The only problem with the film is that the franchise feels overused. The plot seems to draw out what seemed to be a happy ending from the previous films and add more conflict. And the action scenes seemed too complicated. In the first film, a simple sword fight was a wild ride, and now the characters do battle with overwhelming objects of power (like a trident or a ghost ship). This causes the series to become drawn out and oversaturated.  Although the film was enjoyable, it seemed to have gone down in quality since the first three films.

This movie is funny and entertaining, but don’t expect anything new to the table as far as production. I give it a 3.5/5.