Capsule reviews of films playing the week of June 8 

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PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES If the first two sequels to 2003's highly entertaining Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl were fairly agreeable examples of popcorn fare — tasty, a bit salty, not at all nutritious, and forgotten before long — then this latest entry represents the grimace-inducing alternative: the unpopped kernel that just sits there, bereft of almost all value. Directed by Rob Marshall in a spectacular free-fall that saw him go from the Oscar-winning Chicago to the indifferently received Memoirs of a Geisha to the thudding Nine to this round of sloppy seconds — Gore Verbinski, helmer of Pirates 1-3, wisely elected to continue his Johnny Depp partnership over at Rango — POTC: On Stranger Tides is too long (even though it's the shortest of the four!), too cluttered and too forgetful of the reason why we're here in the first place. That would be to watch Depp cut loose in the role that turned his career supernova: Jack Sparrow, the fey pirate whose greatest skill remains looking out for himself. Depp still seems interested in the part, but scripters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio let him down by frequently ignoring his character's ability to surprise us with his go-for-broke insanity in order to mire him in an ofttimes dull quest to locate the Fountain of Youth. The teaming of Depp and Penelope Cruz (as a sexy swashbuckler) doesn't quite produce the fireworks one expects, while Ian McShane seems unable to muster much menace as the murderous Blackbeard. That leaves it up to Geoffrey Rush, once again playing the unsavory Barbossa, to elicit any of that old-time Pirates magic — his saucy scenes with Depp are arguably the movie's best. In reviewing 2007's POTC: At World's End, I wrote that "it's a fine summertime distraction, but woe to the viewer who elects to revisit it somewhere down the line." This latest effort can't even earn such guarded praise, meaning it's best to send On Stranger Tides to its watery grave and hope for stronger tidings from the rest of the seasonal blockbusters. **

POM WONDERFUL PRESENTS: THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD Just how big of a camera hog is Morgan Spurlock, the documentarian best known for the immensely entertaining Super Size Me? Let's just say that if someone placed him next to Michael Moore, the Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker would suddenly appear as reclusive as the late J.D. Salinger by comparison. OK, so that's a wee bit of an exaggeration, but while Moore at least has the sense to turn the camera away from himself long enough to burrow into the subject at hand, Spurlock demonstrates with POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold that it's hard for him to keep his mind on anything besides Morgan Spurlock. The rather simple hook of this picture is that Spurlock elected to make a documentary about product placements by financing it with money raised solely through — you got it — product placements. So for most of the film's 90-minute running time, we watch Spurlock hitting up various companies for sponsorships and discussing the philosophical ramifications of the practice with social activist Ralph Nader, political dissident Noam Chomsky and, uh, Rush Hour 3 director Brett Ratner. It's all entertaining stuff, but unlike Super Size Me, it only skims the surface, as Spurlock never really takes time to dig into the more fascinating subplots that arise from the material (such as the power that some unlikely behind-the-scenes figures wield when it comes to dictating a movie's content) and instead seems more satisfied in smugly trumpeting his own cleverness. But hey, more power to him. If he hadn't made it in the movies, this cheerful salesman would doubtless be working at a car dealership near you. **1/2

PRIEST Priest begins with some juicy exposition related through trippy anime (not surprising, considering the source material was a Korean graphic novel) before plunging into its story about a "Warrior Priest" (Paul Bettany) who sets out after the vampires who kidnapped his niece (Lily Collins). And for a while, the picture looks as if it might deliver on a palatable pulp-popcorn level: Director Scott Stewart keeps the proceedings moving at a breathless clip, Bettany's seething conviction as both a man of the cloth and a man of action is inspiring, and the obvious plot parallels to John Ford's The Searchers (seriously!) are a nice touch. Nicest of all, though, is the decision to initially keep the vampires out of sight, a throwback to the rule dictated by filmmakers Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur that suspense is best maintained when the monsters exist in the mind rather than on the screen. However, this being 2011, we know we'll eventually see the vampires — which is fine ... until we actually see them. These creatures are, in a word, laughable. Created entirely through CGI — unconvincing CGI, I might add — they suggest the result of a threesome between Dracula, The Road Runner, and a slug. The exception is the "human vampire" called Black Hat (Karl Urban), who in the end turns out to be a stock movie villain, only with sharper teeth. After a strong beginning, Priest ends with a whiff of Jonah Hex about it. Keep searching. **