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Perhaps 'Pirates of the Caribbean' is dead and should stop telling tales (C+)

"Dead men tell no tales" isn't entirely accurate. The dead tell a tale in the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but unfortunately that tale is erratic, filled with holes, peppered with far-too-convenient plot points and tarnished by over-the-top situations that go beyond comical and land in the territory of just plain absurd.

And yet, because a dead person telling you a story is still kind of neat, Pirates still manages to provide some fun and thrills, even when it doesn't always make sense.

The beloved drunk/inept/legendary/surprisingly competent Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) returns, though he's at a low point in his life and career -- which, to be fair, is not a place we haven't seen him before. At one point he's referred to as "washed up," and one has to wonder if that isn't just meta commentary on the series following the last Pirates film, On Stranger Tides.

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Depp plays the role the way you'd expect, which is fine if you want a "comfort food" movie but less great if you were hoping for anything interesting in the form of character development. We actually get a surprising amount of backstory into the pirate's origins (complete with a somewhat disturbing CGI depiction of a young Jack Sparrow), but there's nothing really revealed in the flashback. It's just an excuse for a special effect.

In this image released by Disney, Johnny Depp portrays Jack Sparrow in a scene from "Pirates...
In this image released by Disney, Johnny Depp portrays Jack Sparrow in a scene from "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales."(Disney / AP)

The story in Dead Men Tell No Tales actually revolves around two new characters: Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), son of the original trilogy character Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), and Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario). Henry is on a quest to lift a curse placed on his father (see: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End), while Carina is a woman of science attempting to read a "map that no man can read" that she believes is hidden in the stars.

The youths' paths converge into a hunt for the trident of Poseidon, a treasure that can give its wielder control over the seas and/or break all of the curses of the ocean. Unsurprisingly, a lot of other people want to trident too, including series mainstay Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and newcomer Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), who commands an undead crew and seeks revenge on Jack Sparrow for cursing him many years ago.

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If that sounds like a lot to handle, it is. Dead Men Tell No Tales has so much going on that even it seems to forget which thread of the plot it's holding at any given moment.

For example, a sea witch character is introduced out of nowhere to provide key information to a couple characters (who seek her out as if she is well-known and important). Then she just ... vanishes. As if the filmmakers forgot about her.

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Another newcomer has a surprising connection to an old character -- a connection that comes out of left field and feels forced at best, almost as if the writers were afraid to just let a new face stand on its own without being related to a familiar one.

And the trident? Little more than a MacGuffin. The characters are definitely headed toward it, but when it's brought up, you have to say, "Oh, right. That thing."

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Another problem: Salazar and his men are supposedly freed from the curse when Sparrow "gives away" his iconic magical compass, which conveniently happens near the start of the movie (this happens in ridiculous fashion, but less ridiculous than the method in which it eventually returns to him). There is no narrative justification given for why the curse on these undead men is broken by giving away the compass, nor how Salazar would know it would behave like that.

Oh, and Paul McCartney is in the movie for some reason. Because it wasn't crowded enough in there.

It's not all bad, though. The humorous antics are worth some chuckles and the big set-pieces provide some good visual splendor. Thwaites and Scodelario hold their own as young leads (like Bloom and Keira Knightley before them), and their characters help ground the story when everything else is on the verge of flying off the rails.

This isn't the worst Pirates of the Caribbean has been, but it also doesn't meet the high water mark of the original.

All of the film's narrative problems reek of a team of storytellers grasping for reasons to continue this franchise and failing to do so elegantly. A post-credits scene suggests at least one more movie to come, but after that, perhaps its time to really lay these dead men to rest.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (C+)

PG-13 (for some suggestive content and adventure violence). 128 minutes. In wide release.