Okay, here is my take on things:
Pirates 4 doesn't really deserve a "this movie sucks" review, so much as it deserves to be called totally mediocre. It's not surprising that this movie got made, or that it wasn't good.
Cash in? Maybe, but I think a big part of the the desician to do it was also that Johnny Depp, the supporting actor, wound up upstaging Orlando Bloom early on. Audiences came to see the movies because of the Jack Sparrow character, and honestly Orlando wound up going from being the hero and leading man, to becoming the supporting actor as well. He didn't even get the big climactic fight scene at the end of the movie.
The problem with the fourth movie is that Johnny Depp really had nobody to work with as a decent supporting actor, he really NEEDED Orlando Bloom to pick up a lot of the slack.
To put things into perspective, the fight scenes in this movie are lacking. A big part of the problem is that Johnny Depp is an aging actor whose forte was never really in his choreography and fight scenes. In the previous movies he managed to do so well because his actual fights where you saw Jonny Depp as himself as opposed to a stunt double, were either against CGI, or with someone like Orlando Bloom. Part of good choreography is not to show off how badarse your charcater is, but to also be able to convey a closely matched fight as one, when the script calls for it, a good choreographer can work with a less talented actor and sort of help carry them and make them look better than they actually are. Hence why you had some really good fight scenes where you could see both Johnny Depp and Orlando as themselves for a good part of it.
The best fight in this new movie is pretty much conducted entirely in shadow so you can't see who the characters are, just the costumes, which kind of helps to hide the fact that neither Johnny Depp or Penelope Cruz are exactly overflowing in talent for fight choreography. The big dust up with Barbarossa and Blackbeard likewise suffers from the simple fact that neither of those actors are exactly action-guys either, on top of being old dudes themselves. Geoffrey Rush benefitting in say the first pirates movie for doing most of his more impressive "fights" by merits of being replaced by a CGI monster when the actual action happened, and the action being his stand in.
None of the characters are terrible, yes there are stereotypes involved, but then again this is supposed to be about stereotypes, nobody is really trying to break moulds here. This is still a series about Disney pirates who apparently do bad things, but you see few of them on Camera. For example we've never seen Jack Sparrow put an entire crew to a sword to steal their money/cargo, despite the definate implication that he's just as bad as Blackbeard when it comes to that kind of thing, as we need to sympathize with him. Penelope Cruz's spanish hottie is a stereotypical genere character, but then again that's what you expect here. It's funny to hear about a lack of character development, and so on, when it's mentioned Barbarossa comes accross differantly than other movies... but then again he's an old man, and this movie takes place YEARS after the end of the third one apparently. It makes sense he'd change a bit given his circumstances, and to be entirely honest part of the entire point is that once you figure out the story behind the character this time, it's pretty obvious he hasn't changed THAT much, he's still very much the same devious, cutthroat, "anything it takes" dude. Becoming a Privateer to get a ship and army of warriors for his own purposes actually kind of illustrates that he's actually always been smarter and more practical than Jack has, and that is a defining part of that entire relationship.
Also I'll be blunt that while this movie WAS very mediocre and hardly deep, I think Bob was either predisposed to hate on it, probably due to other movies he wished did better, or it was actually too smart for him... doubtful, but possible. The reason for this is that he goes off on how Blackbeard "obviously has magical powers at least equal to Davy Jones but doesn't use them except in key instances..." sort of demonstrates that he misses a key point. Blackbeard knows a bit of Voodoo with the dolls and Zombies, but otherwise all of his power is in his sword and that sword apparently gives him the power to control ships specifically, otherwise he's a pretty normal guy. Hence why Blackbeard's sword is a big deal at the end of the movie, and for those who didn't actually get it, there is actually a scene of Barbarossa animating Blackbeard's ship using the sword at the end of the movie. The flamethrowers on the front of the boat probably just being an over the top weapon as opposed to a magical attack, and the lack of Blackbeard using any overt magic later on probably has a lot to do with all his stuff being ritual based, except for when he uses that sword, and he isn't on a ship for him to control when most of the movie goes down. Blackbeard is hardly a supernatural menace on anywhere near the level of Davy Jones whose power was pretty much godlike within his sphere.
All told this movie is more on the "wait to see it on video" catagory, rather than "OMG this sucks". It's not wonderful, but it doesn't suck either... and yeah, there is an extraneous priest character who you expect to go somewhere and never does.
As a series I think Pirates Of The Carribean is generic enough where I'm not opposed to more films in the universe, which is pretty much just "Hollywood Pirates with the dirty deeds referanced but never shown, combined with supernatural stuff". This kind of genere has a lot of potential, but honestly I don't think anyone will do one without the "Pirates of The Caribbean" name for fear of being called a rip off, even if the series hardly invented the schtick. The key to doing more movies in the universe however is to ensure that they have a stronger overall cast, with the big bucks they spent on this movie, someone should have realized that both Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush need other actors to help carry them, especially when it comes to the action side of things.
One of the reasons why the movie looks like Cr@p in places (though it looks good in many others) is because they make it dark or otherwise mess with the scenes when stuff is happening to cover up all the old fogeys and middle aged dudes doddering around trying to act like he-men. You either need to cover up for Jonny Depp, or the fact that when a lot of the stuff is happening it's not Johnny Depp but his stand in, and I'd guess for over half the movie it's probably actually a stuntman... and that really weighs on a movie, an actor needs to be able to carry at least some of his own stunts so he can be seen during the "cool" moments. Looking at this it seems a lot like Jonny Depp did the acting, but was sipping lattes when all the action happened, and this IS an action movie. Of course you can also blame the director for not covering it up better... but still it's hard when it seems like there was that much to cover.
