Interestingly, a lot of the reviewers feel that the absence of the Elizabeth and Will Turner characters are part of the problem. There is no moral equivalent, so you have a bunch of pirates being, well, pirate-y. Again, the key question in CoBP was if a pirate could be a good man. Having not seen it, I can't make any snap judgments, but it seems that on a lot of levels the producers have yet again missed the point of what made the first movie so special. And sure, we had undead pirates, and Rush chewing up the scenery, and a couple of cool swordfights, but like all really successful movies, it asked (and answered) some important questions about the protagonist, Jack Sparrow. Certainly movies 2 and 3 didn't even come close. It was all about fights and action. Which is EXACTLY what this movie sounds like. Stupid summer fare.