Plenty of room for more Pirate treasure

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Directed by Rob Marshall. Starring Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Ian McShane and Geoffrey Rush.

Rating: 7 (out of 10)

Previews for the fourth Disney Pirates of the Caribbean film show Jack Sparrow entangled with Penelope Cruz. Our campy Captain with a love interest? Say it 'aint so, me hearties.

Not to worry. Johnny Depp keeps his boots on and his sword safely in its scabbard: "I'm just as bent as ever," Capt. Jack assures us, "hellishly so."

Gone are Keira Knightly, Orlando Bloom et al, but we hardly miss them. As Angelica, Cruz provides the girl power, and there are plenty of fiendish new characters to kick-start the franchise. It's Depp we're here to see, anyway.

Director Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine) replaces Gore Verbinski in the captain's chair, and change is a good thing. The last Pirates film, in 2007, was a flat, blatant bridge to a sequel, and the franchise was in dire need of fresh blood.

We find it onboard Queen Anne's Revenge, the ship belonging to notorious pirate Blackbeard, with its blood-stained sails and "zombie-fied" quartermaster. Then Ian McShane appears as Blackbeard, literally smoking with evil and with several voodoo tricks up his sleeve. How's that for new blood?

Alas for Blackbeard, eternal life is not one of his tricks, and a prophecy has declared that his number is almost up. He's headed in search of the fabled Fountain of Youth, with Jack as his prisoner and guide. A Spanish Armada is sailing that way, too. So is Jack's old rival, Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), a reformed pirate now in the service of His Majesty's navy.

So Jack's got a map but needs a ship; Angelica has a ship but needs directions; Barbossa has both but is out for revenge, not the fountain. Things get a bit convoluted in the quest for the Fountain, which requires two chalices mixed just so, a mermaid's tear and some other hocus-pocus. Only if you're an Archeology 101 nerd will you get bogged down by the Ponce d! e Leon t imeline and locale, the rest of us are all about the swordfights.

It's back to pirate-y good fun, and the film is never better than when the focus is on swashbuckling, swabbing and skulduggery. Less consistent are the big effects sequences: most are great, a few are as murky as Davy Jones' locker. Locales are lush and varied, and the entire proceedings are given depth with 3D.

The best sequence involves an early chase through London via bunting, funeral carriage, and finally, a fiery coal cart. But that's not before Jack crashes a posh equipage and lands squarely in Judi Dench's lap (after whispering naughty nothings in her ear, he departs, with Dench's dowager lamenting "Is that all?").

Sam Claflin is great as the missionary whose soul is saved by a mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey); McShane is fab; Cruz is fair as the convent girl supposedly corrupted by Jack, but far from becoming an audience favourite. Supporting cast is uniformly good, including Keith Richards, who makes an appearance as Jack's dad.

Marshall has succeeded in making On Stranger Tides satisfying in its own right, but there's plenty of room for a sequel or three: meaning that unless Depp himself stumbles on the fountain of youth, he may look like papa Richards before the franchise is through with him.

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