Johnny Depp's iconic Captain Jack Sparrow felt like a shell of his former self in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The fifth entry into the Pirates franchise was met with middling reviews, with many critics noting that Depp's once-iconic performance felt stale and lifeless. While Depp's personal life seemed to get in the way of his fifth turn as Captain Jack, there were several factors that made the infamous pirate seem so far removed from his previous appearances.
Captain Jack Sparrow was down on his luck by the time of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. With his crew absent and his ship, the Black Pearl, magically confined to a bottle, Jack had hit rock bottom. He even traded his enchanted compass for a drink, unwittingly releasing the undead Captain Salazar back onto the waters. Jack teamed up with his old frenemy and far more successful pirate, Hector Barbossa, to restore the Black Pearl to its former glory and defeat the villainous Salazar. He also met William Turner and Elizabeth Swann's son, Henry Turner, and helped him break the Flying Dutchman's curse, which had plagued his father since the events of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.
Jack Sparrow was completely out of character in Dead Men Tell No Tales and was frustratingly inconsistent with his previous portrayals. In the first four films, Jack was established to be clever, cunning, and a (relatively) good person at heart. He pretended to be a dim-witted fool to trick others like James Norrington into underestimating him. In Dead Men Tell No Tales, this facade was completely gone and Jack is written as a complete fool and a purely comedic character, with no emotional weight or intelligent thought. His actions were fully at odds with his previous motivations of ruling the seven seas as captain of the Black Pearl, and he was only interested in getting drunk. This Jack was unrecognizable throughout the film, but his lack of care when he thought the Black Pearl had sunk was an inexcusable moment of character assassination.
A report (via The Daily Express) from the filming of Dead Men Tell No Tales suggests that Johnny Depp was receiving his lines through an earpiece. The film came out in 2017, when Depp was married to actor Amber Heard, a high-profile marriage that was reportedly rife with conflict and consistent allegations of domestic abuse. Depp's apparent disinterest in the film may have contributed to the muddied portrayal of Jack, as the actor was simply going through the motions rather than questioning the script or properly emoting Jack's thoughts and feelings.
Dead Men Tell No Tales notably featured very few of the supporting cast from the previous movies, like Angelica or Pintel and Ragetti, for Jack to play off of. However, returning characters such as Barbossa and even a brief cameo from Will Turner managed to keep their credibility intact, so it remains a mystery why Disney felt the need to transform Jack from a markedly intelligent pirate into the butt of every joke. The lack of Gore Verbinski as director may have also contributed to Jack's poor portrayal, although Verbinkski didn't direct Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and that film managed to keep Jack's character intact.
One of the very few strong moments of characterization for Jack Sparrow in Dead Men Tell No Tales was a flashback to a younger Jack outwitting Salazar. The scene showed the origin of Jack as a deckhand on the Wicked Wench before taking up the role of Captain and tricking Salazar into sailing into the cursed rocks, the Devil's Triangle. Jack was smart, plucky, and confident, making his older portrayal in the rest of the movie that much more baffling and infuriating. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales could have rivaled the greatness of the other films in the series if it hadn't ruined the character of Captain Jack Sparrow by turning him into a joke instead of maintaining the cool, cunning character of the previous four movies.