THE second Pirates movie became the third highest-grossing film of all-time, not because it was a great movie (far from it) but because the ingredients for a great movie were all there. The idea sounded good.

If only director Gore Verbinksi had shown himself capable of mixing them into anything resembling a cohesive, coherent picture. Pirates 3 is more the same - much more - but an even more confusing mish-mash of action, talk and effects. It is also long. Very long. Very, very long.

Nearly three hours long, which is at least one too many.

That's a long time when you're not having a very jolly roger of a time as Captain Jack (Depp) is rescued from Davy Jones' locker, the nasty head of the East Indian Trading Company (Tom Hollander) puts business before honour, and a Chinese pirate (a wasted Chow Yun- Fat) sails into view to complicate matters even further.

Effects great. Cast great. Action great. Script and direction dredged up from the bottom of the sea.

Everyone goes about their increasingly pantomime-like business accompanied by loud music, rapid editing and a cheerful disregard for a narrative than makes any sense.

We left Captain Jack dragged down to Davy Jones's Locker by the kraken where we find him, after half-an-hour preamble, hallucinating. He's sharing a cell with not one, not two, but dozens of Captain Jacks. See what I mean about too much of a good thing.

Will (Bloom) and Elizabeth (Knightley) team up with the resurrected Captain Barbosa (Rush) on a quest to free Jack and put an end to the trading company. It's always spectacular to look at but script-wise as lively and entertaining as a barrel of dead fish. Many characters from the first two movies return, some merely to be killed off. Rolling Stone Keith Richard - the model for Depp's performance as pirate Jack - pops in to say a few words and strum the pirate equivalent of a guitar as Sparrow Snr. I could have done with more of him.

Depp's wonderful Captain Jack remains an appealing pirate, although the actor has pretty much exhausted what he can do with him.

Bloom and Knightley look pretty and fight well, leaving Rush and Nighy (unrecognisable, as a Scottish Davy Jones) to show how good actors can make poorly-written roles look like Oscar-winners.

Stars: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush, Chow Yun-Fat, Bill Nighy
Running time: 168 mins
Rating: Two stars