PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES (Rated PG-13)

The “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise is now working the swashbuckling adventure into its fifth installment with “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” in which the one certain constant is the presence of Captain Jack Sparrow and his adversary Captain Hector Barbossa.

It should not be unexpected if you get the feeling you’ve seen this movie before. Johnny Depp’s Captain Sparrow, operating in full pirate mode, is still fond of his liquor, stumbling about while plotting his next larcenous move.

Meanwhile, Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa remains Sparrow’s pirate nemesis, a circumstance of the mutinous fallout from “The Curse of the Black Pearl,” the first film in the franchise released back in 2003.

“Dead Men Tell No Tales” opens with a brazen pirate heist of a bank vault in which Sparrow has dozed off after a dalliance with the Port Royal mayor’s wife still in his clutches.

The heist itself, though ingeniously ludicrous, may not have been completely thought out by Sparrow’s crew.  This may be the first time in film history that an entire building has been hauled away by a team of horses.

The amusing part of this caper is that while a building being carted through town leaves an endless wake of destruction, the treasured contents of the open safe empty out during the ride back to the pirate ship.

True to form, Sparrow sneakily retrieves the one gold coin left behind. During his escape from the British army, Sparrow encounters Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), a young astronomer determined to find the Trident of Poseidon, which can only be located by reading the stars.

The Trident holds the key to saving Sparrow from the vengeance directed his way by Captain Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem) of the Spanish Navy, who along with his crew was condemned years ago to the ethereal purgatory of the Devil’s Triangle.

The Spanish captain remains committed to his mission of eradicating the high seas of all pirates. That puts Sparrow as well as Barbossa in a perilous position if Salazar obtains the Trident.

The importance of the Trident is that it allows one to reverse curses, and Salazar and his crew members are all undead and seen as CGI-created ghosts that look and act more like zombies with lots of missing limbs and body parts.

In a parallel story, a young Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) would like to find his father Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), who can only return to human form with the help of the Trident.

As a sailor in the British navy, Henry soon runs afoul of his captain’s ill-advised orders, and while imprisoned in the ship’s hold, he is the only one spared death when Salazar easily dispatches the rest of the crew.

Knowing that Henry should be left behind as the one person to tell the tale, Salazar realizes the young sailor would be useful to locate his father as well as Jack Sparrow, thereby advancing his quest for revenge.

As the result of the confluence of events in Port Royal, which includes Carina being slated for hanging for the trumped-up charge of witchcraft and Sparrow to get the guillotine on general principles, Henry comes to their aid and thus an alliance is formed.

Though not quite as good as in the past, Depp’s drunken, degenerate Sparrow remains, though diminished in luster, the source of comic relief with his bawdy sense of humor and one-liner sarcasms.

Even when Sparrow seems on the verge of getting serious about the mission, he can’t help messing up when he barters away for a bottle of booze the magic compass needed to find Salazar. His anarchic, reckless spirit never wavers, and that might be adequate enough here.

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” which may have enough action on the high seas to satisfy fans of the franchise, has run aground, at least in terms of originality.

There is the inescapable feeling that this fifth installment is fueled by the good will of the previous spirited pirate adventures in which the main characters are somewhat fun to watch. But all good things can only go so far without creative reinvention.

Regrettably, “Pirates of the Caribbean” has basically run out of new initiatives, but the retread of the familiar is not so bad if you’ve been hooked on the pirate story and welcome another round.

At least, Javier Bardem’s Captain Salazar brings much-needed menace to his villainous role, while Kaya Scoledario and Brenton Thwaites prove to be appealing newcomers with prospects for a foreseeable return. This “Pirates” would have been an even lesser chapter without the new blood.

Reducing “Dead Men Tell No Tales” to its essence, much like the Disneyland theme park ride upon which the franchise is based, could be fun to take for a spin but you may wish to ponder the commitment of two-plus hours of your time.  

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.