Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

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While moderately less indulgent than the last couple of sequels - and Orlando Bloom free - this is the fourth film in a franchise that ran out of steam after its first outing. There is some fun to be had in Depp's amusing portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow, but even he's struggling to fill the needlessly bloated screentime. Throw in a pointless romantic subplot between a mermaid and a holy man - both extremely attractive, obviously - and you've a recipe for a lovely poster but an inane, boring film.

Centring on the race to get to the (maybe) mythical fountain of youth, Depp's Sparrow manages to fall foul of the British Monarchy, who are naturally keen to take a dip in it. They've enlisted Geoffrey Rush's still devious Barbossa to help them find the fountain, while The Spanish are also in the hunt. Naturally, Sparrow ends up getting into some shenanigans, and comes across an old flame (a top heavy Cruz) who informs him that her old man, infamous pirate Blackbeard (McShane), also wants in on the glorified volvic. So the race to the fountain (that doesn't even have coins in it) kicks off in a competitive fashion.

In fairness to new director Rob Marshall, he does a respectable job staging the film's swashbuckling moments, and some of the set design is predictably impressive. But there was no need for a fourth film in this franchise and it's difficult to see On Strangers Tides as anything other than cashing in on a once popular character. Depp can claim he came back for the love of said character, but if that was the case then more care would've been taken with a half-arsed, lacklustre script that is packed with "nothing cohorts" and a brainless subplot. What happened to him? His magnetic charisma and quirky sensibilities are still there, he just insists on making the same film with Tim Burton over and over - and now a third sequel in a profitable, if mediocre franchise.

It's clear there would be no Pirates 4 without Johnny Depp. He obviously see's Sparrow as his Indiana Jones, and initially it was a series of films worth getting excited about - as was the ridding of Bloom and Knightley's tedious romance. But that romance has just been replaced with a duller one, which adds more boring minutes to a run-time that would've surely benefitted from a tighter production packed purely with Jack Sparrow quips, sword wielding, and PG fornication.

An endurance test for the most part, a braver new direction focusing purely on Sparrow could have made this worthwhile, but the studio need hot young things to put on the poster next to Johnny Depp. Viewed in 2D, the added 3D aspect may amuse the kids - but there's no hiding the general banality.