I have a guilty pleasure for the Pirates of the Caribbean series. The awesome soundtrack, the thrill of adventure, the complete absence of brooding drama through zany humor, the grey morality with its “heroes”, how one scene’s enemy is the next scene’s closest ally (and vice versa), the ever-expanding world building (the latter being my personal favorite)—it makes even the series’s conventionally “bad” films enjoyable to watch. Dead Men Tell No Tales shares the same strengths as its predecessors, as well as the same glaring faults that keep the series from greatness.
The pacing is uneven: focusing lengthily on comedic filler and not enough on important plot points. Development between characters is skimpy at best, and at worst feels hastily thrown in without any foreshadowing (the recent film has a great subplot idea that is executed abysmally). Yet I can’t bear to give Dead Men Tell No Tales the thumbs down, because I really did enjoy the ride, flaws and all. I do, however, think the entire series would have been better off as a seasonal TV series. Even with the expected pay cut downgrade in CGI and setting, a seasonal version would allow for less draining, episodic timespans and more time to focus on developing character relationships and important plot points.
Snatched:
Snatched caught my attention because it costarred Goldie Hawn, who had completely disappeared from film for 15 years. I thought Hawn had actually retired from film, so to see her suddenly share top filling with Amy Schumer (playing mother and daughter respectively) was an intriguing surprise I couldn’t pass down. As expected from a Schumer film, Snatched is a very raunchy comedy—it’s also a genuinely funny film with some decent comedic chemistry between Schumer and Hawn, as well as some hilarious scenes from Ike Barinholtz (who plays an agoraphobic mama’s boy).
The film almost acts as a tribute to Hawn’s career (there’s even a scene where Schumer pulls out a scrapbook with pictures of Hawn in her glory days): with the daughter’s gained respect for her mother being a parallel to the writers's respect towards Hawn’s time/impact in film. Whether or not Snatched was the right way to show such possible admiration, the film still works as a crass action-comedy—with some good humor and a few genuinely sweet moments…though, ultimately, I’m just really happy to see Hawn in another film.
P.S. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about and who Goldie Hawn is, she was a big-named actress of the late 60s to early 80s. Cactus Flower, Dollars, The Sugarland Express and Shampoo are all good places to start if you're interested in seeing Hawn during her prime.
