Cast: Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem. Geoffrey Rush, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario, Orlando Bloom

 Directors: Espen Sandberg and Joachim Ronning

 Duration: 153 mins

Javier Bardem’s Captain Salazar is merely one of many dead, but not quite, really, nautical growlers in this latest outing of the Jack Sparrow seafaring canon. With this particular Piracy voyage we set a course for the Trident of Poseidon, a mythical region which apparently harnesses all that’s required to destroy the power of all sea-bound curses. Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) is miffed that his dad (Orlando Bloom) is unable, due to some-such curse or other, to resume mortal coil duties, as he too is presently undead, aboard the Flying Dutchman – whilst the aforementioned Salazar is desperate to reclaim life and consequently the missing rear of his skull, which in turn may speed up the slow-motion windswept tonsorial enigma on his bonce. For he too is trapped in this hellish Devil’s Triangle. Meanwhile the erstwhile Jolly Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) merely desires to chuckle past death’s door and drench himself in rum. Alongside this motley crew is Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), a buxom lady of science and astronomy, both of which baffle the attending bampots who brand her as a witch.

Depp – way back in Pirate no. 1, actually received an Oscar nomination as the roguish swashbuckler – but here he simply goes through the Sparrow textbook of moves, expressions and smartarse remarks. Bardem’s Salazar is a pirate-hunting Spaniard who had previously made it his mission, when in life, to rid the seas of anyone sailing under the black skulls and crossbones flag and was gold-coining it in - until that Sparrow rascal outsmarted by him – and now, caught between life and death aboard the ghostly Sister Mary, his monochromed repertoire consists merely of oozing black oil from his mouth while creepily murmuring “…death!” to anyone who will listen. Bardem does his best with the material, but it’s a woeful waste of such a major talent. One highlight though, is a fab cameo from none other than Paul McCartney as Uncle Jack, and the wacky thumbs aloft moptopped knight of the realm acquits himself quite splendidly. 

But with an unimaginative re-boot of the usual overblown set-pieces, the film offers nothing substantially new, and is, in comparison with its quartet of predecessors, little short of mediocre. Time, me hearties, I reckons, for Disney to splice the mainbrace and permanently set this franchise off into a very distant horizon on a one-way journey.