'Pirates: On Stranger Tides'

Johnny Depp's faux-foppish Capt. Jack Sparrow has kept the highly profitable "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise afloat for what is now four episodes going on five, and he's still the only arguable reason to get onboard. In its furious attempt to suck viewers down a 3-D whirlpool of indiscriminate action, the new edition, subtitled "On Stranger Tides," exemplifies the chocolate-chip theory of American culture: Everything good will ultimately be "improved" until it acquires chocolate chips. And then it will taste like everything else with chocolate chips.

Overkill, in other words, which is something of a specialty for Rob Marshall, the director who once turned "Chicago" into a sleight-of-hand hallucination and takes over from Gore Verbinski for a movie that subscribes to the philosophy that too much is never enough, unless it involves an actual story line.

Here, the ne'er-do-well Capt. Jack becomes embroiled with the pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane), his daughter/old flame Angelica (Penélope Cruz) and the returning Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) in a race to find the Fountain of Youth (or "Yoof," as it is occasionally called here). Fair enough. A fountain would be great. A Red Bull might have helped.

The new "Pirates" achieves something novel: It is hysterical and dull at the same time. Part of the reason is chemical imbalance. The first "Pirates" movie, based on the theme-park ride, was a fairly straightforward period romance -- with the outrageous addition of Capt. Jack, whom we later learned was modeled by Depp on Rolling Stone Keith Richards (who returns here as Jack's barnacle-encrusted father). Jack was used as ornamentation rather than centerpiece, and less was definitely more. Depp is certainly fun to watch, which is why he's a movie star despite his allergy to star roles, but you just wish that screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (working off the Tim Powers novel "On Stranger Tides") had given him more to do.

The "romance" hinted at between Jack and Angelica is DOA; the supernatural elements are pure digression (the extended mermaid subplot allows for the inclusion of beautiful and chastely breastless female sea creatures, but serves no point, save for those beautiful, chastely breastless female sea creatures). Nothing said here, of course, will deter anyone from seeing "On Stranger Tides," and people will walk away convincing themselves, magically, that they got their money's worth. But if there's such a thing as memorably inconsequential, this movie is it.

PLOT Capt. Jack Sparrow meets a woman from his past, travels with Blackbeard to find the Fountain of Youth and engages in high-seas high jinks.

CAST Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Ian McShane, Geoffrey Rush

LENGTH 2:18

PLAYING AT Opens Friday at area theaters, with some midnight screenings Thursday night. (In 3-D and IMAX versions.)

BOTTOM LINE Would be more fun if it were shorter.