When I'm putting in another long day at the office, doing jigs on the sidewalk for tourists and jingling my coin-filled cap, I like to pass the time by thinking about how great things would be if you could just do away with the one thing that brings them down.

Imagine going to school without all the tedious schooling! Or being able to sell babies on the black market without it being all "illegal."

I would also like, in my ideal dream-world, to be able to pass out on a bus, if I so feel, without always waking up chained to a grinding-wheel somewhere in wintry Cimmeria, forced to grow strong enough over the next decade of forced labor to break free from my bonds and wreak my terrible vengeance on the evildoers who killed my family. It's getting really time-consuming.

But as in the disastrous example of the Earth where it never rained, subtracting the bad doesn't always work out for the best. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides cuts loose a lot of the franchise's dead weight, yet somehow, it's the least lively entry to date.

-- Local show times, theaters, trailer.

When a map to the Fountain of Youth washes up in the hands of the Spanish, the king of England rushes to send his own ship their first. Geoffrey Rush, captain of the expedition, captures Johnny Depp, who he knows has a map of his own.

But Depp escapes -- only to wind up pressganged by former lover Penelope Cruz onto the ship of her ostensible father Ian McShane (as Blackbeard). Cruz is after the Fountain, too. McShane is prophesied to die in two weeks. Without the Fountain's live-giving waters, his fate will be sealed.

So the Pirates franchise has finally dumped the pretty faces but unengaging characters of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, trimming the proverbial fat from its tasty pirate-steaks. This marks two key occasions: first, free of this baggage, On Stranger Tides is put in position to revive a series that's become increasingly bogged down under its own weight, and second, it's the first time Bloom and Knightley have ever been referred to as "fat."

Unfortunately, On Stranger Tides fumbles the opportunity like Dave Krieg in the red zone.

We've got several problems here, but I think the biggest is that, despite carrying the same writers as the previous three movies, this one isn't terribly funny. Sure, jettisoning Bloom and Knightley's romance just to replace it with a baffling love story between a land-mermaid and some churchy jerk we've never seen before doesn't help things at all, especially when they're something like the 12th- and 15th-most important characters in a busy script. Unless someone's been stealing my paychecks and replacing them with food stamps, I don't believe I'm a Hollywood screenplay, but I'm going to go ahead and call this a dumb move. It has the feel of a ploy to draw in teenage girls.

Nor does it help that a lot of stuff's happened offscreen since the last time we ventured out with our rum-swilling sea-brigands. The Black Pearlis gone and so is Rush's leg, replaced by a stately peg. Rush has gone all Dark Side, switching teams to sail for the king. (Wait, would that mean he's actually gone Light Side? Or maybe a third category is needed for anti-heroes: Lame Side.) Yeah, it's all explained late on for maximum drama, but in the meantime, it feels like we're missing something.

All of which would be mollified to a certain degree if On Stranger Tides had been as funny as the others. It makes efforts at comedy, but they're not strong ones. In fact, if On Stranger Tides were lying on a towel on the beach, Bridesmaids would walk by and kick sand in its face.

Without the humor, all of On Stranger Tides' inconsequential new characters and arbitrary supernaturalism (did you know tears decay?) are brought front and center. I like the Pirates franchise, and this one's plenty adventuresome, if nothing else. But, well: nothing else. On Stranger Tides is a loose weave of a thousand ragged threads.

Grade: C

* Contact Ed Robertson at edwrobertson@gmail.com. His fiction is available on Kindle, Nook, and through Smashwords.