FiLM

Sunken leisure

In the fifth Pirates of the Caribbeanmovie, a bunch of pirates run around and act like dicks while being pursued by ghosts and trying not to sink or get impaled by ghost swords.

If my memory serves me right, that is basically the plot of all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The new one, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales rehashes the same plot, with Johnny “The Whore” Depp doing his whole drunken Keith Richards pirate routine again as Jack Sparrow.

Actually, his Keith Richards routine has devolved into something more akin to Dudley Moore in Arthur 2: On the Rocks. I reference the Arthur sequel, for the original was somewhat funny, but the gag got real tired in part two.

So it goes with Depp’s meandering, mumbling, tipsy performance as Jack Sparrow, the feared pirate that everybody in the world seems to have some sort of beef with, be them alive or dead. He’s laboring with a joke that stopped being funny four movies ago.

This time out, a new legion of undead sailors is after Jack due to his having a compass that can lead them back to the land of the living, or some bullshit like that. The band of dead sailors is led by Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), some dude who was trying to rid the world of pirates in his living days, but wound up a cursed ghost under the sea due to a young Sparrow’s clever trick.

Young Sparrow is depicted in a flashback that has Depp being the latest star to be de-aged by CGI. This movie trick is proving to be some hardcore, creepy-looking stuff. I liked it when they did it to Kurt Russell in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, but this time out, it just looks weird.

Yes, Bardem’s Salazar looks kind of cool in this film. He’s sort of half blown-up, and he always looks like his hair is flowing in water, even when he’s above ground. There, I said something relatively positive about this crap.

There’s also some nonsense involving Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) trying to un-curse his dead father, Will (Orlando Bloom), yet another undead pirate. He must also do something with the compass that Sparrow possesses to bring Will back. If he succeeds, that means Orlando Bloom will be back in full swing for more Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which had me rooting for the compass to be stepped on by a really big person and then burned in a “Please, No More Orlando Bloom Movies!” bonfire.

If that plot doesn’t give you enough for a steady vibe of déjà vu, Geoffrey Rush is back as Barbosa, the monkey-toting dude who was dead in the first movie but is now resurrected. Like Depp, Rush’s pirate routine got tired after the first movie.

The best part of the film actually belongs to Paul McCartney, who cameos as Uncle Jack, Jack Sparrow’s imprisoned relative. McCartney delivers a few good lines with the sort of deft comic timing he displayed over 50 years ago in A Hard Day’s Night and Help! It’s too bad this wasn’t his movie, because he’s far more interesting than Depp’s played-out, gimmicky bits.

Also, kudos to having him singing the Beatles’ version of “Maggie Mae” in his jail cell. Nice touch. There, I’ve said two good things about this piece of crap.

Stay for the credits, because there’s an aftercredits scene that sets up further adventures, even though Disney keeps saying each Pirates film is the last one. Actually, don’t stay for the credits, and just get your ass out of the theater as soon as you start seeing “Key Grips” and “Produced By.” Actually, just stay home and don’t watch this insulting cash machine at all. It’s a waste of time. Ω

“i just met ye, and this be crazy. But i’m a pirate, so call me matey.”

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead men Tell No Tales 12345

3Alien: Covenant Ridley Scott’s third Alien film is an entertaining mashup of the overreaching but cool sensibilities from Prometheus and the old-school ick factor and dread that marked the original. Alien: Covenant continues the ruminations about the origins of mankind birthed in Prometheus while injecting a few more Xenomorphs into the mix. It will please those fans of the first two films of the franchise who want the shit scared out of them, while also appeasing those who enjoyed the brainy—if somewhat confusing and slightly inconsistent—ways of Prometheus. While Scott has leaned harder on the horror elements for this one, his budget is more than $30 million less than the one he had for Prometheus. That film constituted one of cinema’s all-time great uses of 3-D technology. Covenant totally abandons 3-D and features some CGI in the opening minutes that look befitting of a low budget Syfy channel offering. The film more than makes up for it once the crew members of the Covenant, a stricken colony ship in danger of not reaching its destination, set down to scout out a new planet as a closer alternate. They encounter Prometheus survivor David (Michael Fassbender), who has basically been up to no good. Fassbender also plays a new android named Walter, and he more than capitalizes on the chance to do something weird with this acting opportunity. There’s plenty of old school scares and gore to go with the musings about Earth’s creation.

2The Fate of the Furious With The Fate of the Furious, easily the most stupidly titled installment in the Furious franchise—yes, even more stupid than the name Tokyo Drift—you get to see the single most disgusting, stomach-churning, horrifying moment in cinema so far this year. That would be when Charlize Theron plants a big, sloppy kiss on Vin Diesel, the image of which is some kind of “Woman from Monster Meets the Pillsbury Dough Boy On Steroids” nightmare. Some five years ago, I made up a list of five things I never wanted to see, and that came in at number three, right under “Donald Trump as President” and “Spiders in My Scrambled Eggs Being Served to Me By a Man with Weeping Hand Sores.” Somewhere along the way, the Furious franchise went completely bonkers and became less about cars racing around and more about dudes who think hair on the top of their heads is total bullshit and also think upper arms should be the size of a bull’s torso. It also went off on some sort of international spy team tangent, something that worked to a hilarious degree in Furious 7. In The Fate of the Furious, the franchise trajectory becomes ridiculous without being much fun.

4Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 The trippy Marvel fun continues with this big, nutty, spiraling sequel that brings the fun, along with a lot of daddy issues. Star-Lord, a.k.a. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), had some major mommy issues in the first movie, and this time out his dad takes a turn at messing with his head. The dad comes in the form of Ego (Kurt Russell—yes!), who we see hanging out with Quill’s mom in the ’70s during the film’s prologue. (The CGI and practical makeup anti-aging effects on Kurt Russell ranks as one of the best examples of that particular trick.) After a killer opening credits sequence, the Guardians—including Quill, Baby Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (David Bautista) and Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper)—find themselves on another quest. They are quickly diverted to Ego’s planet, where Quill finds out more about his celestial origins. Russell proves to be perfectly cast as Quill’s bombastic father, with Pratt possessing many of the legendary action film star’s alluring traits. Seeing them on screen together, at one point playing catch with an energy ball Quill conjures with newfound powers, is one of the film’s great joys. It also proves to be misleading, because writer-director James Gunn isn’t going to settle for an easy story about a wayward son reuniting with a dream dad. Vol. 2 is as dark and nasty as it is silly and action-packed. 4 Norman Richard Gere delivers one of his very best performances as Norman, a New York “businessman” who doesn’t really have a business or a job. A mysterious, earbudwearing, graying old man riding the trains and grabbing crackers for dinner at the local synagogue, Norman, nevertheless, has big aspirations. A self-professed “good swimmer” fighting to stay afloat, Norman finds himself in the company of an up-and-coming Israeli politician (an excellent Lior Ashkenazi) and, in a moment of generosity/desperation, buys the man a pair of shoes. That gesture earns him some good favor as the politician becomes the Israeli Prime Minister, and Norman’s act of kindness earns him the man’s friendship. With big friends comes more notoriety, and Norman finds himself involved in political intrigue and rising responsibility in the New York Jewish community. Gere, who basically shrinks himself under a sun cap and trench coat, sparkles in the role, making Norman a memorable, likeable and appropriately annoying character.

2Snatched Fifteen years after her last movie, the terrible The Banger Sisters, Goldie Hawn has been coaxed back onto the big screen opposite Amy Schumer. While it’s great to have her back, it would’ve been super great had the movie been totally worth her time. Hawn and Schumer play Linda and Emily, mother and daughter, in what amounts to some decent dirty jokes, some dumb dirty jokes, and a lot of flat jokes powered by a plot with no real sense of purpose. The comic duo work hard to make it all a bit of fun, but they are ultimately taken down by a film that aspires to mediocrity. When Emily is dumped by her rocker boyfriend (the always funny Randall Park), she has no traveling partner for her upcoming, non-refundable trip to Ecuador. In steps Linda, a crazy cat lady mom who barely ever leaves the house. Just like that, the two wind up sleeping in a king bed in a lavish resort, with Emily constantly taking selfies to impress her Facebook friends, and Linda covered up with scarves by the pool. After Emily meets a hot British guy (Tom Bateman), she ultimately winds up on a sightseeing trip with mom along for the ride. Mom and daughter wind up kidnapped and held for ransom, with nobody but their nerd son/ brother (Ike Barinholtz) to save their asses. Director Jonathan Levine (50/50) isn’t afraid to take things to mighty dark places—Emily’s attempts to free her and mom from their captors has a body count—and the film earns its R-rating with raunchy humor, Schumer’s specialty. Hawn and Schumer make for a convincing mommy-daughter combo, and Snatched has its worth for putting the two in a movie together.

2War Machine This movie is all screwy. Brad Pitt plays General Glen McMahon (based very clearly on real-life General Stanley

McChrystal), put in charge of the War in

Afghanistan during the Obama administration.

As depicted by Pitt, McMahon is just his Inglorious Basterds character without a mustache.

This time, Pitt never feels relaxed in the part.

He’s lost in a movie that doesn’t really know where it’s going. It’s a military satire, then it’s a serious depiction of men at war, then it’s a straight-up comedy, then it’s a political intrigue movie. Director David Michod tries to wrangle this mess with the ultimate movie sin, the voiceover, provided by a character based on the late journalist who wrote the article.

Michael Hastings (depicted here by a character called Sean Cullen and played by Scoot

McNairy) wrote the Rolling Stone article which eventually inspired the book The Operators. It also brought down McChrystal, depicted here as a bit of a nut, but a lovely, friendly nut who cared about his men, but wanted to win, win, win. In trying to win, he basically leaked classified info, messed with the president, and essentially called him out on 60 Minutes. The film also tries to be a condemnation of American activity overseas, with a not-so-nice depiction of Obama, played here by a mediocre Obama impersonator. Streaming on Netflix. 06.01.17 | RN&R | 17