It finds itself with the same dilemma as the previous two, and indeed any further forays into the criminally underrepresented genre: the well established pirate based tropes and themes are a limited palette and one almost comprehensively covered within the first film in the franchise. Precisely where does one go from there?
Disney's answer, and indeed their business plan, is to glue something together with pieces of the old one in an effort to sell tickets, toys and possibly even beef burgers.
It precedes much as you would expect: Depp does his thing, there are a handful of well engineered action sequences and everyone competes to see who can process the most ham. All shipshape and Bristol fashion so far. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly are notably absent in this one, so it has that going for it too.
The plot however is a thin gruel of randomly mystical elements, competing captains, prophecies and mermaids. Ian McShane, among the films main draws, is poorly used. Any menace he may have brought to the role is superseded by a magic sword, the nature or purpose of which are never really established. There's a good deal of fumbling about and contriving reasons for Sparrow to make increasingly poor jokes. He lacks the mean streak that carried the last brace of films and the heart he once had as his continued search for The Pearl is relegated to brief asides.
And what was with the silver chalice business? Ponce de León supposedly discovered the fountain of youth, he didn't build it, why would it involve cups he had made? Did he try various containers before those worked? "Nope, Thermos flasks are out." It's approach to the fantastic is, like much of the film, distinctly haphazard.
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