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Movie Review: 'Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales'

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- And then there were five.

And each of them features pirates and treasure and ghosts, oh my.

The fifth installment in the tongue-in-cheeky Pirates of the Caribbean franchise – "inspired," you may remember, by a theme park ride – comes to us with the subtitle, Dead Men Tall No Tales.

Well, come to think of it, dead sequels don't wag their tales too tellingly either.

And although the previous installment, subtitled On Stranger Tides, represented an improvement over the trio of mediocre outings that preceded it, the latest represents a step backward.

Unlike the trio of strained and bloated features that kicked off the series, number four rejuvenated the franchise by allowing the featured cast to shine instead of disappearing in the midst of a boisterous and colorful spectacle.

Not so this time, when nobody gets to give a noticeable performance and we viewers have absolutely no point of entry to a story that is hopelessly convoluted anyway.

2
(2 stars out of 4)

The Norwegian co-directors, new to the franchise, are Joachim Renning and Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki), who have described their film as a "soft reboot," working from a don't-mess-with-the-formula script by Jeff Nathanson.

As always, the commercial ace-in-the-hole is Johnny Depp, who nabbed his first Oscar nomination and emerged as a superstar when his campy Captain Jack Sparrow, an iconic anti-hero, showed up and stole the show in the first installment.

But, it turns out, he's featured much less prominently this time out, and he looks bored most of the time anyway.

In the latest high-seas adventure, Captain Jack searches for a powerful artifact, the legendary Trident of Poseidon, which bestows control over the seas and which Captain Jack will need if he's to avoid the clutches of vengeance-seeking pirate hunter Captain Salazar, played by Javier Bardem.

Sight gags, slapstick bits and bursts of CGI line up and emerge like circus acts coming out from backstage, but the feeling of been-there-done-that-itis is inescapable. It's an unwelcome return to subpar form that brands the film as monumentally unnecessary and far short of entertaining.

So shiver me timbers -- whatever the heck that means – and avast ye 2 stars out of 4 for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Color it harmless but charmless.

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