This movie's title won't even fit in a headline

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Rob Marshall. Starring Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Ian McShane.

The Pirates movie where Disney finally stops pretending the franchise is about anything but Johnny Depp ambling around in eye shadow and dreadlocks.

In this film (the fourth), Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) gives his whiny sidekicks the long-overdue boot and goes off on a quest for the fountain of youth. But he gets caught up in a rivalry between Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), an old love interest (Penélope Cruz), and the evil-even-for-a-pirate Captain Blackbeard (Ian McShane).

The film lifts its basic outline from a tried and tested source, Tim Powers' acclaimed adventure novel On Stranger Tides. The result is a story that, while still big, is refreshingly straightforward compared to the convoluted and overwrought second and third movies.

That's not to say it's free from this series' tendency to cram in ideas until it rumbles like an overstuffed cartoon suitcase. The greatest offender is a love story subplot between a mermaid and a preachy sailor that goes absolutely nowhere. No doubt it's there to set up characters for yet another sequel, but there's no excuse for having story arcs that don't stand on their own.

It's one more symptom of a franchise that seems incapable of any kind of restraint-that takes the bigger and louder option whenever it's given a choice. Ian McShane is so terrifying just being himself that I think he might actually be the devil. So why does his character need magical powers on top of that? Why does every swordfight need to culminate in a battle royale against twenty armed soldiers?

None of this matters much. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was never going to be simple or streamlined, but it could easily have been another self-indulgent $300 million bag of useless glitter.

Instead it's a coherent, enjoyable adventure of the kind we're lucky to get every few years.

Rated PG-13 for mermaid debauchery.
4 out of 5

Monte Carlo (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Thomas Bezucha. Starring Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, Katie Cassidy.
Sex and the City 2 for teenage girls.

I went into this movie blind, expecting perhaps an overly sentimental coming of age story. Instead it turned out to be a vapid identity mix-up adventure, which is so very much worse.

Grace (Selena Gomez) celebrates her high school graduation by taking a trip to France with her best friend Emma (Katie Cassidy) and her ill-tempered stepsister Meg (Leighton Meester). In Paris, they run into a wealthy heiress who happens to look and sound exactly like Grace with a bad British accent. Naturally, they impersonate her, take a trip to Monaco, chase boys, and commit a long string of international crimes which are forgiven the instant the tears and apologies begin flowing. At least they don't stop a jewelry heist.

Oh. Wait. Yes they do.

I don't think there's anything else to say here.

Rated PG for identity theft.
2.5 out of 5