Depp saves a listing ship

Rating: 6/10 (1 August 2006)

Once again, Johnny Depp needs to call on his powers as one of the great actors of his time to save this gigantically overblown sequel to part one of the Pirates franchise. The stunts are great. The jeopardy scenes are inventive. The costumes are spectacular. But where's the plot? An hour into the feature and we've seen a host of quality action and choreography to go with Keira Knightley's heaving bosom, Orlando's pouting and Depp's masterful Cockney lecher's leer, but it feels like five short action features one after the other with nothing holding them together. One review of this movie I saw noted it was five minutes longer than Goodfellas, and pointed the question as to what might be gained as a viewer from this as a result as opposed to taking in the Scorsese masterpiece. Cut it down to 115 minutes and you've got a quality pop blockbuster the audience can go home from brushing off the popcorn crumbs with all and sundry telling their friends how they can't wait for the last one, and plenty of good script ideas left over to use in the final instalment. Mind you, it always pays to stay till the end. I've never seen an actor steal a two and a half hour movie with his only line in a fifteen second scene, but well, it's all in a day's work for Geoffrey Rush.