Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Parent Movie Review and Activity Sheets
I absolutely love getting out to see the movies, especially when I can take my family along with me. Here are my Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales review and family activity sheets so you can decide if taking your whole crew is a good idea for your family!
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Review
One of my family’s favorite Disney franchises is the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. My husband and daughter, in particular, are diehard Pirates fans.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales has been much anticipated by my crew and we couldn’t wait to see the movie this week. Literally, couldn’t wait.
We were invited to an advanced screening about an hour away starting kinda late on a school night— and everyone enthusiastically yelled, “AYE, MATEY!” when asked if they wanted to go.
Possible parental judgment warning: we took everyone. Yup. Everyone.
Even the precious 6-year-old. *gasp*
Was this the best idea? Have I had worse ones?
I’d answer “maybe not” and “absolutely” to these questions. But here’s the review and you can judge (me? Sure, why not!) for yourself on what’s best for your family.
Dead Men Tell No Tales is rated PG-13 and with reason. There’s some scary stuff going on in this one and you might find yourself jumping a few times.
I, uh, screamed a bit when the sharks appeared. Just a small yelp, I swear!
Y’all: I just don’t do sharks. Zombie or otherwise. And not in IMAX 3D.
This was also the only point that Lucy was super concerned. We covered her eyes and let her know that everything was okay until that scene ended.
What Pirates fans will love: the sweet story of young Henry Turner pledging to free his father, Will, from the curse of the Flying Dutchman.
It was nostalgic to see Orlando Bloom as Will Turner again, if even for a brief time and tied the series of movies together for me.
This portion of the story comprises one part of a 3 point plot line that leads a grown up Henry, Jack, and a new face, astronomer Carina Smith to seek out Poseidon’s Trident. The Trident is said to be able to break all curses and Jack in particular needs to get his hands on it.
His issue: an old nemesis, Captain Salazar, is hunting the seas, looking to rid the waters of pirates. And number one on his list is Captain Jack Sparrow.
Salazar is dead, did I mention that? Something that Jack had a hand in, by the way, which explains Salazar is bent on finding and killing our rum-loving Pirate.
The effects for Salazar and his crew were very cool, especially the Captain’s hair. I couldn’t stop looking at it waving in the water, even when he was not in it!
Overall, I liked the movie immensely. And I can’t say that about all the Pirates movies in the franchise. This isn’t just a blanket “we are fans so of course, we loved it” response.
It was funny, it had tons of action, it had a good story (super sweet at times), and it brought us new characters to love. We got a healthy dosing of our old favorites as well (I adored Barbosa in this one).
Basically: it’s a classic Pirates of the Caribbean story. Fans of the original movies won’t be disappointed in this one!
Parental Review
I’ve already admitted that I took the whole crew. But was it a wise choice?
In our case: no harm appears to have come of it.
But that’s my family; not yours. So keep that in mind. *Most* kids this age probably have no reason to see this movie, ok? I’m not crazy. I get it.
A curse of having kids with a big age gap results in the exposure of the younger sibling to more things than she probably should be. Lucy has seen parts of the previous installments, and other shows that have similar content. We took care to warn her of things we knew about (the zombie sharks) and she was fine with us covering her eyes or cuddling on a lap. I honestly don’t think it held her attention much.
But the popcorn did, so yay! Popcorn FTW!
All this is to say: if I only had children in the 10 years and under age range, I would have skipped this movie for them. But since we have a large gap things are different in our home.
My other kids (10, 12, and 14) loved the movie.
There was some salty language (I mean, they are pirates! What did we expect?!) but the rapid-fire delivery of most of those lines meant my smaller kids missed them. My older son caught most of the jokes and I was ok with that as he’s a mature 14.
There was a lot of fighting and scary-ish moments in this high-action film, mostly sword fighting type scenes.
No nudity, no sex. Some kissing (to which Lucy said ewwwww and covered her eyes).
If your kids are not able to sleep because the thought of zombies or walking dead or shark attacks bother them, then don’t take them to this one just yet. Because all that happens and most little kids wouldn’t need that in their lives!
Dead Men Tell No Tales Family Activity Sheets
Yo, Ho Ho, it’s a pirate’s life for YOU!
Click on the image and download the full, free printable PDF of the family activity sheet.

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PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES opens in theaters everywhere May 26th!
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Patty Holliday is a parent movie reviewer, writer, and podcaster living in the Washington, DC area. Her goal is to bridge the gap between casual fandom and picky critic with parent movie and television reviews. As a lifelong fangirl and pop culture connoisseur, she’s been creating online since 2009. You can find her work at No-Guilt Disney.com, No-Guilt Fangirl.com, No-Guilt Life, and as host of the top-rated No-Guilt Disney Podcast.
I’m really looking forward to seeing this movie!