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SPARK (U) (Orlando Bloom) stranded on a sunken ship.
Apparently, the mythical Trident of Poseidon and Jack Sparrow offer the a way to bring Bloom’s career back to life.
Soon they’re joined by Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), a feisty astronomer who is on the run from the British after being accused of witchcraft.
As the pair are very similar to those played by Bloom and Keira Knightley in the earlier films, comparisons are unavoidable.
Thwaites turns out to be a perfectly serviceable hunk, but it’s former Skins star Scodelario who provides the ballast. If this series is to have a future, I suspect she’ll have to take the wheel in the next instalment. There’s also a sense of deja vu about the new villain – Capitán Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), a ghostly Spanish naval commander who has been seeking vengeance ever since a young Sparrow blew up his galleon.
Salazar’s spooky shipmates are a little too similar to the ghostly crew in the second film.
Cronies
But great work from Bardem and impressive CGI combine to chilling effect.
It’s the film’s outlandish action sequences, however, that keep the movie afloat.
We catch up with a rum-addled Sparrow as he wakes up inside a giant safe at the grand opening of a colonial bank.
As his cronies tow a blearyeyed Jack and the entire building through the streets of St Martin, Depp’s purpose becomes clear.
And the star gets another chance to show off his wellhoned slapstick in an ingenious sequence involving a spinning guillotine.
We also get a surprisingly uncringeworthy cameo from Sir Paul McCartney, who pops up to offer advice as Jack awaits execution.
“If it’s a disembowelling ask for Victor, he’s got the softest hands,” he tells Jack.
Sadly, when Geoffrey Rush’s Barbarossa and David Wenham’s British captain join the fray, the film begins to creak under the weight of its cast list.
The overlong, CGI-heavy finale feels a little underwhelming too. It has it’s rocky moments, but this ailing franchise might be back on course. (-) (1) (2) (-) (3) (5) (4) (-) (-) (-) (1) (-) (2) (3) (-) (4) (6) (5) (7) £2.5m £2.1m £1.9m £842k £414k £263k £230k £158k £150k £112k $36.1m $34.6m $11.7m $7.8m $7.1m $7.1m $3.2m $2.8m $2.5m $2.0m