There’s probably a great movie in here, it’s just suffocated by self-indulgence and catastrophically terrible script that feels more like a to-do list of pirate movie cliches. Because, in terms of pure visual spectacle, this is incredible. Even my wife, who has very little patience for films like this, was pulled in by the carriage chase sequence and neither of us could see the seams of how they pulled off that falling out a window stunt. The film is full of stuff like this. Giant practical effects that we just don’t see any more. But they go too far. Renny Harlin clearly had no-one telling him “sorry Renny mate, this is a bit much now”. And so, rather than just shooting some kick-ass fight sequence, almost every time Geena Davis is on screen, it’s shot in slow-mo and from five different angles and so half the fight scenes are incomprehensible garbage.

Still, Frank Langella is enjoying himself, hamming it up as the scenery-chewing baddie. So at least someone really enjoyed this film