At two hours and 16 minutes, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides — the fourth film in the ridiculously successful Disney franchise — is the shortest in the series. But it still feels overlong and overstuffed: needlessly convoluted yet, at the same time, phoned-in.

And the fact that this one’s in 3-D — because everything’s in 3-D, silly thing — does nothing to liven up the action. Those three-dimensional digital effects mainly consist of various swords and snakes and such being flung at our faces.

Boo! Did you jump?

That’s not to say this summer behemoth doesn’t have its thrilling moments. Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine) takes over from Gore Verbinski, who directed the first three Pirates movies, and his knack for choreography comes shining through in individual set pieces. An early chase sequence, in which Johnny Depp as the randy Captain Jack Sparrow escapes the clutches of the puffy, bloviating King George II (Richard Griffiths), is expertly staged. Jack swings from chandeliers and hangs from ropes, straddles moving carriages and steers a cart full of flaming coal, and we’re right there alongside him every breathless step of the way.

Similarly, a night-time attack by mermaids — beautiful, seductive, deadly mermaids with razor-sharp teeth — provides a jolt. Because what’s hotter than mermaids, except maybe naughty vampire mermaids? And the first time Jack crosses paths (and swords) with his old flame Angelica, played by a spirited Penelope Cruz, it’s in a lengthy, fluid battle across beams and atop barrels. (Oddly, Cruz and Depp, who co-starred together in 2001’s Blow, don’t have a whole lot of chemistry once they have to actually stop and talk to each other.)

It’s everything that happens in between, all the chatter and the exposition, that make the latest Pirates such a repetitive bore.

Depp’s performance, which seemed like such a free, goofy, inspired bit of work when the first film came out back in 2003, now feels so dialled-down and obvious, it’s as if he could do it in his sleep. With the (unexplained) absence of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley this time around, Depp’s Sparrow is now front and centre — he’s almost the voice of reason — rather than the bejewelled and eyelinered clown riffing in the corner, commenting on the action.

As for the plot — not that it matters, really — this time the script from Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio centres on a search for the fabled Fountain of Youth. Jack has no ship anymore, so when Angelica kidnaps him and drags him aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship belonging to the fearsome Blackbeard (a constrained Ian McShane), he’s stuck going along for the ride.

Blackbeard seeks the fountain after receiving a prophecy that he’s going to die in two weeks. But the Spanish are after it, too. And so are the English, led by Jack’s deceitful old nemesis Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush).

Did we mention that there are zombie pirates aboard Blackbeard’s ship? The fact that they’re zombies makes no sense at all — I mean, come on, wouldn’t they be trying to eat the brains of the living pirates at every opportunity? — and feels like yet another attempt to inject arbitrary weirdness in the place of genuine inspiration.

Also on board is a hunky man of faith with just the right amount of facial scruff named Philip (Sam Claflin), who falls for one of the mermaids (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), who’s been taken prisoner because her tears are required to activate the Fountain of Youth waters. (Don’t ask.) Ostensibly, this relationship is intended to replace the young-people-in-love subplot that Bloom and Knightley provided, but it’s so full of banal angst, it feels a little too much like something you’d see in the Twilight series.

But surely that’s coming in the fifth Pirates movie: sexy werewolves.

Johnny Depp loves getting under the skin of his characters. So much so that he stops looking like himself. Here are some of his wackiest screen avatars. which is your fave? Tell t2@abp.in

Character: Edward Scissorhands

Film: Edward Scissorhands

USP: Director Tim Burton, that mad genius, has used Depp in the maximum number of bizarre characters. This one was about an unfinished creation called Edward, who has scissors for hands. Depp’s pancaked face bore scratch marks from the scissors but those eyes cried out for empathy.

Character: Mad Hatter

Film: Alice in Wonderland

USP: Arguably Depp’s craziest look ever. Director Tim Burton and Depp made Lewis Caroll’s much-loved character come alive in all shades of the rainbow. Curly orange hair, pasty skin and pink make-up and Depp wanted to make the one-note Mad Hatter human!

Character: Tony

Film: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

USP: When Heath Ledger died without finishing the shoot, Terry Gilliam got friends to become Tony in parts of the film. Depp, like Jude Law and Colin Farrell, was made to look like Ledger.

Character: Sweeney Todd

Film: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

USP: Another Tim Burton creation, this one’s about an English barber who murders his customers for revenge with a straight razor. The shock of white in his hair and those blood-red eyes made Depp look scary in this desaturated film.

Character: Willy Wonka

Film: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

USP: Burton adapted the much-loved Roald Dahl book and really, it was a no-brainer that Depp would play Wonka, the owner of a famous chocolate factory. Top hat, violet-tinted contact lenses and long hair did the trick.

Character: Edward D Wood Jr

Film: Ed Wood

USP: Burton again, and here he was making a biopic on the worst filmmaker of all time. So Depp had to look like Wood did. Enter slicked-back hair and pencil-thin moustache, and Depp looked every bit the passionate but pathetic director who made Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Character: Raoul Duke

Film: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

USP: Terry Gilliam goes wild with this adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel about two heavily-drugged men going berserk in Vegas. Depp played Duke, considered a manifestation of Thompson, wearing over-sized tinted glasses which made him look downright comical.

Character: Ichabod Crane

Film: Sleepy Hollow

USP: Loosely based on the fictional character in Washington Irving’s short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Depp’s Crane is a New York policeman with an interest in science. The actor made him appear geeky and gawky.