The franchise has shifted. The 'first trilogy' was visually-centered. It was quite literally a ride, allowing Depp room to creatively be silly. Some of the cinematic stretch was significant, and I still remember the Shackleford reference fondly.
This is something entirely different. Sure, it has busy sequences and characters from the same universe. But now we have something story- centric. Images are pasted onto the story rather than the other way around.
There's even an excess of story and excess within story with the excess being a character itself.
There are at least three love stories, one of them tender and conventional, all of them centered on Catalonian women.
There is something of an overarching battle between Christianity and the supernatural. The extreme irony is that the Spaniards are the token of the faith. In actual life, they were the ones who invented the notions of supernatural evil, the first continental faith-based genocide and New World slavery.
There is a nice little revenge story that references Moby Dick. And at the end two Peter Pan like affirmations of the (pirate's) life of adventure.
I liked it. I liked the gush and mix of narrative. I liked the appropriation of Almodovarian values. But I have to say that no one knew how to leverage Penelope the way Pedro can. She is not inventive like Johnny and Geoffrey. She is a vessel, a vulnerable vessel that can be filled with female assets. But she has to gather that from the environment. Making her into something even Geena Davis and her lover could not do is a sacrilege.
