Movie review
May 23, 2017 · 129 min · PG-13
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
The fifth Pirates entry follows down-on-his-luck Captain Jack Sparrow joining young sailor Henry Turner and astronomer Carina Smyth to locate the Trident of Poseidon and stop vengeful ghost pirates led by Captain Salazar. Carina functions as the intellectually dominant female co-lead, repeatedly outsmarting male characters with star maps and a Galileo diary while facing witch accusations and bad-luck jokes in the 1700s setting. Directors and the actress explicitly framed her as a "modern woman" fighting for university access and self-reliance, creating noticeable but contained beats of female competence and period sexism humor within an otherwise standard fantasy adventure.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Woke representation / casting
Carina is placed as the central intellectually superior female lead whose astronomy expertise solves major plot problems and repeatedly makes male characters appear superstitious or less capable, reinforced by the actress's and directors' "modern woman" and "progressive" framing plus contemporary diverse casting in the period role.
Woke political dialogue
No activist, political, left-wing, or modern ideological dialogue of any kind; all exchanges stay inside pirate fantasy, curses, and 18th-century period comedy.
Identity-driven story themes
Carina's orphan background, scientific ambition, fight against sexist witch accusations, and discovery that Barbossa is her father form a recurring personal-identity and self-reliance arc that runs parallel to the main quest and emphasizes female agency.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Recurring comedic and dramatic use of 18th-century sexism, male skepticism toward female learning, and witch accusations elevates Carina's competence by mocking period male authority and superstition, without any modern systemic or activist reframing.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant; Henry and Carina are new characters that extend existing family and pirate lore without ideological alterations.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Completely absent; no documented claims anywhere that the title pushes woke, activist, identity-political, or left-wing messaging.
Creator track record context
Directors' explicit on-record goal to introduce a "modern" and "progressive" female lead supplies direct support for the empowerment elements, even though their prior non-activist work keeps the factor modest.
Production
