About Captain Sparrow Sailing to the Bank

After drifting far off course with the execrable “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” Disney has tried to steer it’s multi-film franchise back on course with installment four, “P of C: On Stranger Tides.” Tossing director Gore Verbinski overboard, Disney hired Rob Marshall — whose career began as a Broadway dancer and choreographer and whose action credits include the musical “Chicago” and the beautiful, slow “Memoirs of a Geisha” — to take the foundering series back to its roots. Indeed, “On Stranger Tides” often seems like the theme park ride on which the series is based: There’s a climb, a fast dip, a twist you see coming and, occasionally, one you don’t. The ride is fast and over too soon; the film goes on almost forever. Happily, Johnny Depp is back playing the swishy, heavily kohled Capt. Jack Sparrow — the contradictorily effete swashbuckler he created in installment one, “The Curse of the Black Pearl,” which surprised jaded critics and drew huge audiences with its charm, wit, visual excitement and spirit of adventure. On his newest voyage, Sparrow must deal with some changes in his crew and race to find the fountain of youth, something the series desperately needs. Plucky Keira Knightley and cardboard Orlando Bloom have walked the plank since the last installment. But a dreadfully miscast Penelope Cruz sails into the film — her magnificent prow almost making up for her hard-to-understand English — as Sparrow’s old flame, feisty and not to be trusted. Also new is the villain, Ian McShane’s Blackbeard, a tired double-crosser with mystical, supernatural powers and an orange, leathery complexion that suggests years in a tanning salon. Geoffrey Rush reprises his role as Sparrow’s foil and nemesis, Captain Barbossa, now with a peg leg and ostensibly working for English King George II, overacted to a fare-thee-well by Richard Griffiths.Also welcomed back is Kevin McNally as Gibbs, Sparrow’s ever-loyal first mate. The film’s first 15 minutes are entertaining: Eighteenth- century London looks good, and Sparrow’s escape from the piggy George II is thrilling, as you’d expect in a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film. But then begins a wacky race between Barbossa, Blackbeard and the Spanish to find Ponce de Leon’s fabled fountain of eternal youth. Set piece follows set piece, with brief connecting intervals of comedy and relevant information. Chase follows sword fight follows race. It’s so mind numbing that the funny lines seem to come from another movie. Marshall’s generally plodding direction of the inchoate screenplay only comes to life in appropriately choreographic scenes: Sparrow’s escape at the beginning of the film, sailors dangling from ropes on Blackbeard’s ship, and, best of all, in the above and below water introduction of seductive yet vicious mermaids halfway into the film. As in every action movie, you want the good guys to win. But here every major character is so duplicitous and scheming there is no one to root for. Unless it is for the virtuous, hunky clergyman played by Sam Claflin, who falls in love with a mermaid in an obvious but necessary plot turn. She finally falls for him and ultimately saves his life in the most ridiculous scene of all. So, will this lumbering hulk of a fitfully entertaining film sink? No, I think not. It grossed nearly $350 million in its first five days of worldwide release, the fourth highest in movie history, and is well on its way to earning more than $1 billion. Instead of sailing into the sunset, Captain Sparrow is again heading for the bank, where let’s hope he stays rich and becalmed and forever. “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” is playing at The Moviehouse in Millerton, NY, and at Cinerom in Torrington. The film is rated PG-13 (after all it’s from Disney) and lasts for 2 hours and 17 minutes, though it may seem much, much longer.