LOOK at the figures: Pirates of the Caribbean sequel has sailed to the top of the UK box office charts.

So you do not have to take my word for it when I say Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a true swashbuckler.

Drunken captain Jack Sparrow is a lusty blaggard who cons his co-stars from the last Pirates of the Caribbean into embarking on a ludicrous adventure for, you guessed it, a dead pirate's chest.

I will not spoil the details of who the heart belongs to or who gets it in the end, needless to say its in high demand and the pirates use all their underhand ways to get their avaricious hands on it.

Keira Knightley and her on-screen fianc Orlando Bloom add the clean-cut moral element to the screen.

Meanwhile, Depp's overly camp interpretation of Keith Richards steals the show.

I mean, who else do you see escaping from a tribe of cannibals by being used as a human fruit kebab?

The visual effects are breathtaking, with the baddies ship, the Flying Dutchman, emerging from the murky depths with great speed.

Bill Nighy is particularly good as human-morphed-with-squid evil captain Davey Jones, although he pales into insignificance against the iconic Captain Jack.

Whereas Orlando Bloom, although pretty, can only be described as the equivalent of a Christmas cracker: he makes a noisy entrance but fades soon after.

The only downside to Dead Man's Chest is the length.

At two-and-a-half-hours long it doesn't exactly fly by, in particular the ending, which is set up so blatantly for the third instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Rebecca Kelly