JOHNNY DEPP’S impressive resumé is littered with oddballs from Edward Scissorhands to Willy Wonka and the maddest Hatter ever to grace Alice’s Wonderland.
Yet, of all these eye-catching roles, he is probably best known as salty seadog Jack Sparrow in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films.
Certainly, it was the first role to earn him a long overdue Oscar nomination as Best Actor.
Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley may have sailed off into the sunset for the fourth instalment but Depp hoists the mainsail once again as the most fey and quixotic pirate to sail the seven seas, embarking on an action-packed adventure directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago).
Alas, if the third chapter of the series, At World’s End, was a water-logged bore, On Stranger Tides is moored in similar shallows, almost capsizing during an uneventful middle section that should have been edited to take the running time below two hours. The introduction of 3-D, purely for financial rather than any obvious artistic reasons, doesn’t help the film either.
This time around, Jack (Depp) oins forces with Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to locate the Fountain of Youth. The quest becomes more perilous when Jack is forced aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, captained by legendary pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane), who is also seeking the Fountain, aided by his sexy daughter, Angelica (Penelope Cruz).
Jack must somehow outwit Blackbeard and Angelica and reach the Fountain before his rivals.
En route, he crosses paths with rotund King George II (Richard Griffiths) and a hunky priest (Sam Claflin), whose attraction to one of the mermaids tests his faith.
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides starts off promisingly with a fast-paced extended sequence in London, which sees Jack escaping from the king’s men by riding on the roofs of moving horse-drawn carriages.
Once the film takes to the water, the plot springs leaks and the simmering screen chemistry between Cruz and Depp surprisingly never catches light.
McShane is a woefully ineffectual villain, while Rush seems to be daydreaming of happier times on The King’s Speech.
Depp is still funny and he delivers the droll one-liners with typical fervour: “I support the missionary’s position!”
However, even his considerable talent cannot keep an entire blockbuster afloat, and the film runs aground courtesy of Marshall’s plodding direction and a lifeless script.
