Yo-ho-too long

I've never seen a film that needs cutting down more. The sequel to the first, highly successful, Pirates goes on and on, and then on some more. Added to which, its twisting plot goes backwards and forwards in time and much of the dialogue is virtually indecipherable.

That's the downside. Fortunately, there's an upside: it all looks so good that you can simply sink back and feast the eyes. This is largely thanks to the production design (Rick Heinrichs), cinematography (Dariusz Wolski) and costumes (Penny Rose).

Some, of course, will feast their eyes on the cast. Johnny Depp skilfully - if camply - reprises his fun role as the eccentrically twitching Captain Jack Sparrow alongside Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley as Will and Elizabeth.

The two lovers are apparently desperate to get married - but are interrupted by Sparrow's capacity to tangle with supernatural powers. Although neither of the sweethearts has much to do, Bloom does give us a passable imitation of Errol Flynn in need of a drink; Knightley, meanwhile, contents herself with an excellent impression of a Cheltenham Ladies College sixth-former going to it with a will in the end-of-term play.

All around them, the production twists and twirls, presenting us with one fabulously overblown baroque set-piece after another. And above the din, Hans Zimmer's swingeing music marries swashbuckling melodrama to unworldly fantasy.

I can do no more than sparsely detail the plot, since I got lost halfway through and never recovered. It picks up from where the last instalment stopped, the curse of the black pearl has been lifted but now a worse threat looms over Sparrow and his crew. It seems the captain owes a blood debt of some sort to Davy Jones (Bill Nighy, unrecognisable as a half-human octopus).

Davy is Ruler of the Ocean Depths and captains the Flying Dutchman, which has been on the seabed for so long that its sails resemble flapping crustaceans and its crew have grown fishy appendages. Among Davy's men are Will's long-lost father, Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), who wants to save his son from an eternity of salivating slavery.

Will Captain Sparrow free himself from his Faustian pact with the depths? Or will he rescue the pretty girl and her erstwhile mate? Is he a smelly swine or prince in tatty drag? This is, of course, what we all want to know. And only when we've finally found out does the film suddenly come to an end.

Pirates number three is on the way but Jerry Bruckheimer and Gore Verbinski, producer and director, would be well advised to make it shorter. You can have too much of a good thing.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Cert: 12A