There’s an unexpectedly positive buzz around Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The first in the series, Curse of the Black Pearl is a swashbuckling blockbuster classic, instantly making a pop culture icon of Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow. Four sequels later and none of them have held a candle to the original, with the last entry, On Stranger Tides being outright terrible (though it still grossed a billion at the global box office). But advance reviews of this upcoming instalment praise it as a return to form, describing it as a ‘pleasant surprise.’
Today, we can get a taste of what we’re in for with this new clip, which premiered during an interview with Depp on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Here, we see Captain Jack being haunted by Javier Bardem’s Captain Salazar, an old foe he presumed to have sent to the briny depths many years ago. However, as those familiar with series’ supernatural inclinations know, death is no barrier to revenge.
But, menacing though Captain Salazar is (I particularly dig the ‘drowned man’ CG effect on his hair), the clip reveals one crucial weakness: ghosts cannot walk on land. Ordinarily, this’d make them pretty easy to avoid, but Captain Jack would prefer death to remain land-locked and safe.
Woven into this tale are all the mainstays of the series, with Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley returning, along with Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa. Paul McCartney is also making an unexpected cameo, which should be fun to look out for.
We’ll find out how Captain Jack Sparrow gets out of this scrape in just a couple of days – on May 24th, to be exact – when Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales opens nationwide.