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Thursday, June 1, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS

‘Pirates 5’ drowns 
 
 

By IAN DAVID HARRIS

Daily Arts Writer

There was a time when a 

new “Pirates of the Carib-
bean” movie was a cause for 
excitement. That time has 
long since passed. “Dead Men 
Tell No Tales,” the fifth (and 
hopefully final) entry in the 
Johnny Depp (“Mordecai”) 
led franchise is quite possibly 
the worst one yet.

Picking up approximately 

five years after the forget-
table “On Stranger Tides,” 
this new film follows Jack 
Sparrow as he joins forces 
with Henry Turner (Brenton 
Thwaites, “The Giver”) and 
Carina Smyth (Kaya Scode-
lario, “The Maze Runner”) 
to find the legendary Trident 
of Poseidon, which gives 
its wielder control over the 
seas. If this all sounds a little 
familiar, that’s because this is 
essentially the same plot that 
three of the other films have 
as well. Sword fights, chases 
and curses abound, but in 
the end it all just feels like a 
cheap knock-off of the earlier 
(and better) Pirates movies. 
The only things this film does 
well have been done better in 
previous films and so much of 
what this film does badly only 
takes the franchise lower than 
it was already.

It’s difficult to say wheth-

er or not this film is worse 

than 
the 
derided 
fourth 

one. Although that movie 
was largely meaningless in 
the overall trajectory of the 
Pirates saga, this time around 
the audience is constantly 
reminded that there are bet-
ter Pirates movies out there, 
with the presence of Orlando 
Bloom (“The Lord of the 
Rings”) and Keira Knightley 
(“The Imitation Game”) con-
tinually reminding the audi-
ence that these movies were 
actually good once. Unfortu-
nately their limited presence 
only adds to the sense that 
this is a ship 
that 
should’ve 

been 
docked 

long 
ago. 
By 

the end of the 
third film the 
character arcs 
were all played 
out, the ship-to-
ship battles had 
reached their crescendo, and 
it was time to let Jack Sparrow 
sail off into the great beyond. 
What could’ve been remem-
bered as a fun trilogy of action 
flicks has instead become one 
of the most continually disap-
pointing franchises in recent 
memory. By this point the 
series has lost almost every-
thing that once made it great. 
But by far the biggest sin of 
all is what has become of Jack 
Sparrow.

What more can be said 

about Captain Jack? What 
was once an iconic char-
acter has slowly become 
a bumbling buffoon remi-
niscent of Jar Jar Binks. In 
the first three Gore Verbin-
ski (“A Cure for Wellness”) 
directed 
films, 
Sparrow 

was witty, charming, smart 
and, yes, just a little bit 
drunk. Now the drunken-
ness is all that remains. 
Jack Sparrow does not do 
a single thing that could 
be called even semi-heroic 
in the entire runtime of 
“Dead Men Tell No Tales.” 

He barely even does 
anything useful. If he 
was taken completely 
out of the movie and 
everything 
else 
was 

the same it would prob-
ably be a more enjoyable 
film. It’s truly the death 
knell for the franchise 
when, during the emo-

tional reunion that is the 
climax of the film, it cuts 
back to Sparrow and there 
are audible groans from the 
audience. What was once 
the main draw has become 
a horrible drag on the pro-
ceedings. It’s high time for 
this franchise to be put into 
port — asking audiences 
to continue to sit through 
these things would be akin 
to asking pirates to wash 
up and brush their teeth. 
Enough already.

WALT DISNEY PICTURES

Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow 
By JACK BRANDON

Daily Arts Writer

As foreseen by the enchant-

ing Laura Palmer, “Twin 
Peaks” is back after nearly 
25 years. Kyle MacLachlan 
(“Portlandia”) returns with 
some of the original cast: 
Sheryl Lee (“Winter’s Bone”), 
Richard Beymer (“West Side 
Story”) and Al Strobel (“Child 
of Darkness, Child of Light”) 
among many others. While 
many of the faces from 
the show have returned, 
the heart of “Twin 
Peaks” has changed, if 
only by a small margin. 
Although a triumph for 
David Lynch (“Eraser-
head”), the Showtime limited 
release differs in spirit from 
Seasons One and Two.

Season Three opens with 

a prophecy from The Giant 
delivered to Agent Cooper 
in a dream, or a space like 
the Black Lodge. The scene 
proceeds in typical “Twin 
Peaks” style — patient, eerie 
and bizarre. Their conversa-
tion, cast in black and white, 
precedes a delivery of shov-
els to Dr. Jacoby at his idyl-
lic, quiet shack in the woods. 
After these two scenes, with 
their intensity juxtaposed, 
the narrative clips to New 
York City, eventually zoom-
ing in on an empty glass box 
inside a high-rise, monitored 
consistently on all sides by 
video cameras and a watch-
man. The man and the box 
stare each other down in a 
moment of quiet tension that 
is broken by a notification to 

change the memory card on 
camera three.

Within the first 10 min-

utes, “Twin Peaks” estab-
lishes itself as a continuation 
of the narrative, but through 
different techniques. The 
original two seasons were 
firmly grounded in the fic-
tional location, with occa-
sional 
forays 
across 
the 

border to One-Eyed Jack’s. 
Season Three defies the 
constriction to the town of 

Laura 
Palmer’s 

death and flicks 
back 
and 
forth 

between storylines 
and 
timelines, 

which would be 
less disorienting if 

there weren’t so many new 
characters and facets. Per-
haps, as viewers, it may be 
necessary to trust that the 
direction will answer its own 
questions and fill in its own 
blanks, like when watching 
“Game of Thrones.” Angelo 
Badalamenti’s 
sultry 
jazz 

and musical motifs are also 
lacking, leaving the audience 
listening to the sounds of 
the moment — footsteps, an 
alarm, the scratch of a record 
player.

Most dramatically, the pal-

lette of the series has changed. 
Many scenes are cast in cool, 
dark shades, which evoke 
gloom and heaviness. Other 
brighter scenes are shown 
white, creating a mood of hos-
tility and sharpness. Howev-
er, when Lynch turns back to 
the core characters that occu-
py Twin Peaks — Cooper, his 
doppelganger, Ben and Jerry 

Horne, The Log Lady, Hawk 
and Lucy — he restores the 
rich, warm, earthy tones that 
visually defined Seasons One 
and Two.

The episode itself reaches 

two separate climaxes that at 
first seem to have nothing in 
common. The first is the grisly 
murder of the watchman and 
his daring lover, who comes to 
visit at an inopportune time. 
As they begin to have sex, a 
violent specter appears in the 
glass, bursts out of the box 
and shreds the couple’s heads. 
The second is the discovery of 
the decapitated head of Ruth 
Davenport, shot in the eye, 
and the body of an unidenti-
fied man in the bed of Ruth’s 
apartment. Lynch returns to 
the murder of a young, beau-
tiful girl as a crux for the 
narrative. While Lynch may 
have left other visual motifs 
behind, the motifs of head-
lessness or the separation 
between body and mind are 
established twice within the 
first episode.

In short, “Twin Peaks” 

stays true to Lynch — 
macabre, 
strange 
images 

and questions rather than 
answers. Episodes One and 
Two, released simultane-
ously, provide a rich, mysti-
fying experience that may 
take two or more viewings 
to fully understand. While 
die-hard fans may struggle 
adjusting to the disparities, 
the limited release is ambi-
tious, looking beyond the 
confines of its legacy and 
into the plight of FBI Special 
Agent Dale Cooper. 

SHOWTIME

Kyle MacLachlan stars as the famous and beloved Special Agent Cooper 
‘Twin Peaks’ lives on

Twin Peaks 

Showtime

Sundays 9PM Est

Dead Men 
Tell No Tales 
 

Walt Disney 
Studios

Rave Cinemas/
Quality 16

TV REVIEW
MOVIE REVIEW

