Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales may as well use the slogan for Earth Day – reduce, reuse, recycle. It seems like the plot was recycled from previous movies, and reused concepts from tales that have been told, having been entirely too typical and left too many opportunities to guess exactly what was going to happen next.

The movie follows the voyage of Elizabeth (Kiera Knightly) and Will’s (Orlando Bloom) son, Henry (Brenton Thwaites), and an intelligent young woman and astronomer named “after the stars,” Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario). A ghostly Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) and his crew from The Silent Mary also make an appearance – they have escaped from the Devil’s Triangle, and are seeking revenge on the swashbuckling, rum-drunken Jack Sparrow (of course played by Johnny Depp).

Apart from the disappointing CGI flashback of Jack Sparrow in his kid pirate days, the cinematography was unsurpassing of decent. The sea’s roaring rapids warranted no complaint, and neither did the dramatic pan-over of The Flying Dutchman in the movie’s very beginning.

When it comes to Pirates of the Caribbean music, Hans Zimmer has always been the captain at the helm. However, Geoff Zanelli did a fantastic job of building on Zimmer’s legacy. The unmistakable tunes of the Pirates of the Caribbean music were a breath of fresh air; full-circle nostalgia for the old-school fans, and perfectly evocative of pirates, plunder, and a hard life at sea.

As funny as it was to watch Johnny Depp sway around drunkenly, slurring away at his words in the first movie, it’s a bit less funny this time around knowing that accusations of his abusive behavior are floating around in the air. As for Kaya Scodelario, her portrayal of Carina Smyth was impressive, yet nowhere near incredible. (But she sure was pretty.)

Seeing my favorite pirates on the big screen again cured my nostalgia, but apart from the music, the bits of witty humor, and impressive cinematography,  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales left a lot of room for improvement.