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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
2017 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Here we go again
I can’t be the only one surprised that the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has managed to withstand five films. Created on a whim by Disney in 2003, the first film propelled Johnny Depp into the lives of movie fans like never before.

However, come 2017 and Depp’s star is sinking faster than the Black Pearl. After three pretty dreadful sequels, the cast reunites for Salazar’s Revenge. But does a change in directors herald a new and exciting path for the plucky pirates?

Thrust into an all-new adventure, a down-on-his-luck Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) feels the winds of ill-fortune blowing strongly when ghost sailors led by his nemesis, evil Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), escape from the Devil’s Triangle. Jack’s only hope lies in seeking out the legendary Trident of Poseidon, but to find it, he must forge an uneasy alliance with a brilliant and beautiful astronomer (Kaya Scodelario and a headstrong young man in the British navy (Brenton Thwaites).

Newcomer directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg craft a film that is magnificent to look at and stunning to listen to, but features all of the same problems as its predecessors. The time really is up on this franchise.

Of the cast, only Javier Bardem’s snarling Salazar makes any sort of lasting impact. In fact, he’s probably the best antagonist the series has ever had and makes for a menacing presence throughout. Depp looks like he’s on autopilot, almost as bored of Jack Sparrow’s drunken antics as we are, and the normally excellent Kaya Scodelario (Skins, Maze Runner) plays a particularly bland female lead during the films running time.

Speaking of which, at 142 minutes, this is one migraine inducing slog. All four previous films have suffered from being overstuffed, and with the extra abundance of characters this time around, it’s even more painful. There simply is no need to create a film that’s nearly two and a half hours long, especially considering the plot is as paint-by-numbers as you can get.

Nevertheless, to look at, Salazar’s Revenge really is breath-taking. The action is filmed confidently and the sets are fantastically detailed using some exceptional practical effects. There are ghost sharks, glistening islands and the motion capture used on Javier Bardem and his crew is seamless. Only the CGI-heavy finale lets the film down. The music is also sublime. Geoff Zanelli’s thunderous melody features the trademark theme-tune mixed with some really lovely orchestral music.

Overall, Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge kicks off a summer season filled to the brim with sequels and after the previous film’s poor reception, expectation was almost as low as it is for Transformers: the Last Knight.

What we’ve ended up with is a bit of a double-edged sword then. It’s certainly better than the previous three sequels and almost up to the standard of the 2003 original; the problem is, that film wasn’t particularly good in the first place.


https://moviemetropolis.net/2017/05/26/here-we-go-again-pirates-of-the-caribbean-salazars-revenge-review/
  
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
2003 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow (4 more)
Great Cast
Great effects for the time
Great action
Hilarious
Why is the Rum gone?
Fun fact: This film was born from an idea that was inspired by a theme park ride at Disney Land. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride was thought of by Walt Disney himself as well.

The first film in this action, adventure, fantasy comedy franchise, is an unforgettable installment to the franchise as it still remains to be probably the best film of the franchise. With brilliantly written comedy executed on screen by Johnny Depp and a handful of other cast members such as Pintel (Lee Arenberg) and Ragetti (McKenzie Crook) as the two foolish members of Barbossa's crew who always end up in their own mischief throughout the franchise.


The film, which was released back in 2003 (I know...makes me feel old as well and I'm only in my early 20's) had incredible special effects for the time with the Aztec curse that turned Barbossa's and his crew into the undead skeletal pirates that are able to walk along the bottom of the ocean.


Perfectly timed comedy, brilliant visuals and a fun plot to lose yourself in, this film is a great film for the whole family and one of the best Pirate films out there, which takes you on an adventure from Port Royal, to Tortuga, and Isla de Muertos. This film is a great watch, which leaves you with one question;


Why is the rum gone?
  
Black Sails  - Season 1
Black Sails - Season 1
2014 | Adventure, Drama
10
7.2 (5 Ratings)
Intense stories (2 more)
Believable characters
Plot hooks keep you guessing
This is a series that my husband and myself watched and felt genuine sadness when we reached the end of the last season. We knew of the titular characters from both fiction and history, but STARZ managed to bring them to life in a way that we couldn't help but be drawn to. We would find ourselves trying to figure out the next betrayal or surprising good deed, which famous name would make an appearance, and there was no end of drama to keep us enthralled. A most excellent portrayal of swashbuckling pirates on the high seas, bringing a depth to them beyond the known ship battles for treasure that we all know.
  
Disclaimer: I received a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is the third installment of this series, and it just keeps getting better and better!

Mick and his little brother Finley have fended off zombie pirates and an evil mermaid. So what's there to do now? Why, defeat a killer robot army, of course!

Savannah, the new girl in town, as really gotten on Mick's nerves, so he hatches a scheme to get rid of her for good. However, it doesn't go as planned (of course), and theeeeeeen life gets weird (well, weirder than he's dealt with in a couple weeks, anyway). How will he make it out of this scrape? Grab your copy to find out!

5 stars =)
  
Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates
Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates
2019 | Nautical, Pirates, Racing
I feel like I try to open pirate-themed games with silly faux pirate talk and it’s getting old. So I won’t do that this time. What I will do is start by saying we reviewed another Forbidden Games title (Raccoon Tycoon) to very high praise, so we expect nothing but greatness now. Does Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates! (or from now on just Pirates) match the quality we enjoy in Raccoon Tycoon? Yarr.


Pirates is a piratey, deck-building, racing game for two to six players attempting to reach Trinidad with the most VP and greatest booty (interpret that as you will). To setup, lay the humongous board on the table and populate the merchant ship locations with the appropriate number of supply crates pulled blindly from the bag. Each player will place one of their ships on the starting locations of each of the three tracks upon the board. Shuffle the Merchant Deck and place it in its position on the board face-down. Shuffle the Port Deck and set it near the board face-down but reveal the top three cards as the offer. Shuffle the treasure tiles and reveal a number of them equal to three times the number of players plus one more. Give each player their starting deck to shuffle and then draw five as a starting hand. The race may now begin!
On a player’s turn they will play three cards from their hand and “move their ships accordingly” says the rulebook. Initially we were not sure if that meant movement cards could all be played to the same ship or each of the three cards needed to be assigned to each of the player ships on the three different tracks so we decided to use the latter rule logic. Cards will contain a number in the lower right hand corner to signify how many spaces a ship may move this turn. Some cards will also have a special power written beside the movement number that may be used instead of the movement. The starting deck contains one card that will be able to thin the deck using this type of special power.


When a player’s ship meets either a Merchant ship or moves into a Port the movement ends immediately to resolve these encounters. When plundering a Merchant ship players will simply swipe the supply crates from the board and draw a Merchant card to their discard pile. When in Port, players will be able to draw one of the face-up Port cards in the offer or the top card from the face-down draw deck. In addition, players will be able to use the supply crates collected as currency to purchase the revealed treasure tiles near the board for VP at game end. Once all card have been played and subsequent actions played as a result the next player takes their turn. Play continues in this fashion until one ship reaches Trinidad and ends the game. The pirate captain with the most VP from cards, treasure tiles, and placement on each track will be the winner with the greatest booty (not in the rules, but I like to play that way).
Components. We were impressed with the components in Raccoon Tycoon, but Pirates scores well above it in component impressiveness. The board is massive and features incredible art. It looks just like a map and it’s simply gorgeous. The cards are all fine quality and the art on them is very good. The true component stars in this game are the supply crates and the player ships. Okay, so I love playing games that feel deluxe. I’m sure I’m not alone with that statement, but when I tell you that these little crates are amazing I meant it. How easy would it have been to just throw in a bunch of colored wooden cubes like 98% of games and call it a day? Easy peasy. But no, not good enough. Pirates goes the extra mile and gives us molded plastic (or resin, idk I’m not a chemist) boxes that look like supply boxes. And the pirate ships? The same super incredibly quality. They are minis where standees could have worked just fine. And they are DETAILED. I love them so much. Components score a big time happy face from us.

But the gameplay. Components are great but make the game they do not. However, having these great components only enhance the already wonderful gameplay here. I love deck-building games and it might be my favorite style of game. I also genuinely love when games throw in additional styles to complement the deck-building. Don’t get me wrong, we all love our Legendary: Marvel DBG (it’s a Golden Feather Award winner after all), but that’s just straight up deck-building. I quite enjoy another little deck-builder that adds a map and an additional way to use the deck-building cards in harmony: Trains. In Pirates we have deck-building paired with racing on a giant board. It just fits the piratey theme so well and combines deck-building with what I love from the game Jamaica.

It’s no surprise that I personally rated this quite high. Though not all our team has had a chance to play it yet, I believe they would all love it as much as I do. Purple Phoenix Games gives Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates! a plunderingly wunderful (I did that on purpose) 11 / 12. Want to add to your deck-building experience with a race using excellent components and art? Pick up a copy from your FLGS today!
  
Blackbeard
Blackbeard
2006 | Adventure, Biography, Drama
6
6.6 (9 Ratings)
TV Show Rating
Good cast (1 more)
Decent for a TV miniseries/movie
Not entirely accurate (2 more)
The characters and boats are far too clean
TV effects (or lack of) might spoil some scenes
Somewhat entertaining
So I was on the search for some more Pirate movies at my local DVD stores, in hopes of finding something with the effects of Pirates of the Caribbean, but a more serious plot like that of the Black Sails series. Something that feels more like how the golden age of piracy would seem, not quite as quirky and humorous as the Disney films, although I cannot fault them for they are some of my favourite movies. It was on my search, that I came across this, and my initial thoughts were that whilst it looked cheap, it could be an entertaining film. As it turns out, I discovered this was a TV miniseries, merged into roughly a 162 minute film.

It has some charm, I can say that much for it. The cast are decent with very few famous names, and the acting itself isn't dreadful. However, there seems to be some lacking in the actual filming and editing of the episodes/feature. It has a decent plot which involves a hunt for treasure, a hunt for justice and slight revenge, which makes the viewing, feel like a pirate experience should be, but there still seems to lack the proper visuals to complete the experience.

If you take a look at Pirates of the Caribbean, one aspect that makes those films so darn good is the visuals. The pirates are dirty, rotting teeth, golden teeth, dirty fingernails, and their ships are battle worn with scars in the woodwork and again, the dirt from barnicles, and land. The ships in this feature on the other hand, are the cleanest ships you'll see in a pirate themed show or movie, and they look as if they were freshly made straight from the ship builder themselves. There doesn't appear to be any barnicles clung onto them, nor are there any battle scars, even after you witness a battle in the beginning of the film. The pirates themselves are also clean, all with white teeth as though they visited a dentist and brushed their teeth with colgate or the next best brand. There's not a single sign of scurvy which was popular among pirates during the golden age, and I didn't really spot any scars from battles apart from the obvious ones where you witness a member of Blackbeards crew have part of his leg removed due to injury (you don't see the gruesome imagery, as it's 12 rated series). Other than that though, there no facial scars, no sign to tell us that Blackbeard has fought enough battles and lived through them to become reknowned as a devil instead of a man. We only see what appears to be a couple of weeks of him as a Captain, and yet he claims to already be known as the scurge of the seas, which is highly unlikely given that we only see him battle one ship and spend the rest of his time hunting treasure, never running across another opposing ship until the finale, which sees Blackbeard battle against a crew of Royal Navy soldiers led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard.

Whilst the plot had me intrigued for the most part, I can't say that this is a film I would 'Highly' recommend, but if you fancy watching a pirate movie, this could be somewhat sufficient until you find something else, despite some of the deaths in battle seeming very staged, as sometimes I would notice a sword being shoved theatrically into someones armpit, only for the victim of the blade to fall lifeless to the floor, some holding onto the blade as though left in their body, others being retrieved from the 'corpse' with no visible blood on the blade.

With very historical accuracy's, mostly about the legend of Captain Kidd, hiding treasure, and the title's that Blackbeard earned, before his life was taken by that of Robert Maynard, the location of his death, and some other less important factors, were dramatized for the series alone and should not be taken as historically accurate.

It's a decent film, but it's just not quite what I was hoping for, and certainly not as great as it could have been.
  
Escape to the Stars (Galaxia Pirates #2)
Escape to the Stars (Galaxia Pirates #2)
A.M. Halford | 2016 | LGBTQ+, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
8.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Escape to the Stars (Galaxia Pirates #2) by A.M. Halford
Escape to the Stars is the second book in the Galaxia Pirates series. In this one, we find out more details about the stowaway, Sandy, who we met at the end of the first book. Brian is in charge of him, and once they find out he is branded with a slave mark, Brian knows that Sandy can't bunk in with the rest of the crew, so he has to share his room. The attraction Brian feels for Sandy is strong, but when he sees the fear in Sandy's eyes, he backs off. Sandy has been a sex slave, and programmed through hardship to react to any touch. Sandy decides that he will power through this and propositions Brian. Things seem to be working out for them, but then Sandy's owner, Sylvain, catches up with him.

This is an easy to read book, where you don't have lots of background information to bog you down. Some may find that annoying, but for me, this story was just perfect - it came at the right time and gave me what I needed from a book. What is there is well written, and features Tony and Craig from book one too. There were no editing or grammatical errors that disrupted my reading flow. This was a brilliant coffee break book, and definitely recommended by me.

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and my comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
  
PL
Pirate Latitudes
4
4.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Michael Crichton's last full work, and in a move unusual for an author best known for techno-thrillers, this novel is actually a historical adventure.

Although it is not the first time he has dabbled in the genre (see also The Great Train Robbery and Eaters of the Dead), I felt that his relative lack of experience of said genre showed: one needs only compare this to a work by Bernard Cornwell, for instance.

I suppose It is possible that the novel was finished but not completed, if you know what I mean, and I also got the feeling that he was trying to jump on the Pirates of the Caribbean (albeit without the magic!) bandwagon with this novel, also set in the Caribbean during the time of Charles II
  
Rambo (Rambo IV) (2008)
Rambo (Rambo IV) (2008)
2008 | Action, Drama, Mystery
Brutally violent
This time around John Rambo has made his way to Burma where he is solicited to drive a group of doctors and relief aids to help with the genocide happening within the country. He eventually agrees and immediately has run ins with the local pirates where he jumps into action.

Much more bloody and brutally violent than the previous Rambo films, Stallone must have felt this was the right or direction direction to go after quite a long hiatus from the previous films.

If it wasn't for Stallone's portrayal of Rambo, the rest of the protagonists and villains are very generic, so you don't really care about them.

Enjoyable if you like brutal bloody, violent action with no other real point.

  
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
2017 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Also known as "Salazar's Revenge" (instead of "Dead Men Tell No Tales" in certain circles - I think maybe Dead Men is the American subtitle? - this is the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film, with Johnny Depp again reprising what is (for me) his most iconic role of the Pirate Captain Jack Sparrow.

This Tues itself closer to the original trilogy that the lady entry ("On Stranger Tides"), with the return of certain key characters from that trilogy 'bookending' the plot, and with a close familial tie to one of the key characters of this.

Indeed, we're also back to basics with the plot of a supernatural threat to Sparrow, and of his wish to reclaim the captaincy of the Black Pearl (his ship), ALONGSIDE the return of Captain Barbossa (yet again)...