So in an attempt to kill some down time, I opted to go see Alien Covenant. Then once I showed up at the theater, I just couldn’t do it. Everyone was telling me to see it. It’s gotten tremendously good reviews, the trailer was stellar, and all that jazz. But for some reason I was just more compelled to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. I’d seen the trailer (which I thought was surprisingly good) and said to myself, “Fuck it. How bad can it be?” So I paid an arm and a leg for a seat, popped some corn, found the optimal seat and awaited what I thought would be a three hour ordeal like the third movie, At World’s End.

The basics are that Will and Elizabeth Turner’s son is on a quest to break the curse binding Will to Captain the Flying Dutchman. In order for him to do that he has to find Poseidon's Trident which has the power to break any and all curses at sea. If you’re thinking this sounds ridiculous…well….what did you expect? It’s a movie franchise based off of an amusement ride. Anyway, through one way or another all the regular characters enter the storyline. That storyline involves several parties each with their own agenda trying to find the Trident. All of this is going on while Javier Bardem’s character, dead Captain of a dead crew, is trying to get his revenge on Jack Sparrow for cursing him to his miserable fate. Given Bardem’s great performance and ultimately him and his crew’s compelling motivation for revenge, it’s almost impossible not to root for him.

I ended up being pretty entertained. The trailer didn’t ruin too much of the plot, which is almost unheard of these days. There was a notable and funny cameo by a famous Rock ‘n’ Roll legend from Liverpool, England.

I haven’t seen the previous movie, On Stranger Tides, but it didn’t matter because there wasn’t really anything in this movie that really demanded you see it.

Best part of it for me was the run time, 2hrs and 33mins. Like I said before, I thought this film was gonna drag on and on like the third movie 2hrs and 49mins. I checked my watch when the credits started to roll and did a double take. This movie was remarkably better paced than its predecessors.

I will say that at one point I found myself thinking about the first movie and then almost saying out loud, “What the hell happened to the series?” I mean, the first movie was this fun little high seas adventure with undead pirates. Then it just kept getting bigger and bigger until every shot alone looks like it cost more than the entire first movie. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed movie. But watching Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Men Tell No Talesside by side it becomes pretty hard to see any relation.

So, while it’s about to become very popular to hate this movie with a Meta Critics rating of 38%, it’s still at the end of a day enjoyable. It’s well paced, has a couple of chuckles, and it’s shot in beautiful Australia. Go see it.