Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Rated: PG-13 (for intense sequences of action/adventure violence and some frightening images)
Runtime: 168 minutes
Directed by: Gore Verbinski
Written by: Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio
Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush, Bill Nighy, Chow Yun-Fat

I always say that I’ll watch any movie that has zombies, samurai, or pirates. So I was thankful in advance for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Yeah, it’s based on a Disney theme park ride but who cares – the first film, Curse of the Black Pearl, caught everyone by surprise by both being honestly great, and making a bankable name out of Johnny Depp (finally – well-deserved commercial success). I seem to be in the minority in that I enjoyed the second flick, Dead Man’s Chest, more than its predecessor. For me, it upped the ante on everything I loved about the original and offered a much grander, epic scope. Now we get the climactic third installment in the trilogy, the finale to part two’s cliffhanger ending, titled At World’s End. It really hurts me to say this – it’s the worst of the bunch.

That’s not to imply I didn’t like it – I did, quite a bit in fact. We’ll get to that in a minute, though. The story picks up where it left off, with the gang trying to rescue Captain Jack Sparrow (the increasingly enigmatic Depp) from Davy Jones’s Locker at the world’s end (ah… title significance). The East India Trading Company, more specifically Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander), is vying to rid the seas of all things pirate, now possessing the heart of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), binding Jones into a dangerous alliance. Meanwhile, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) is trying to unite the nine pirate lords to release Calypso, heathen goddess of the sea in human form, to crush their enemies. Long story short – there’s gonna be a big battle on the water.

Acting-wise Pirates is top notch. Depp of course owns the flick, reveling in what is obviously the most fun he’s had playing any character (though I’m still partial to his Hunter S. Thompson portrayal in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). Keith Richards has a great cameo as Sparrow’s father – funny in that Depp often cited Richard’s real-life behavior as a model for his portrayal in the series. Rush and Nighy are both very charismatic, and the film benefits from the presence of Chow Yun-Fat as Sao Feng, one of the pirate lords. Unfortunately he’s incredibly underused. Somehow I was particularly impressed with Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom this time out. I never regarded them as bad actors, just extremely backseat in the series. They both step up and claim their own in this finale.

Gore Verbinski is again at the helm and directs with the same kinetically extravagant panache he’s honed throughout the series (the guy’s come a LONG way since Mouse Hunt). The cinematography is deft and visceral, with apt composition and a welcome sense of dramatic elegance amidst chaos (grand, sweeping slo-mo shots of characters kissing while everything explodes and collapses around them – sort of heavy-handed but effective). The fights are intricately choreographed and incredibly dynamic, the color scheme is great and the visual effects are superb – visually this flick is solid.

The story and script hold the keys to all my problems. The multiple, overlapping plotlines intersect not so much into intricate spider-web fashion as they do clustered pandemonium. The Davy Jones love story (which in initial setup was among my favorite elements of Dead Man’s Chest – it made him this Shakespearean-like Phantom of the Opera sort of villain) falls flat in the end. The Will (Bloom) and Elizabeth (Knightley) tale concludes as dissatisfactory. Barbossa’s presence sometimes feels ill-motivated, and he’s devoid of an arc. The introduction of the Calypso storyline is somewhat out of left field and doesn’t deliver on the epic proportions it initially suggests. And there’s this recurring stint with Sparrow seeing multiple incarnations of himself, with whom he has active conversation and interaction (usually involving stealing a peanut from one of them). It’s funny at first, but starts to wear thin, feeling uninspired and just… odd. And not necessarily in a good way. And when all’s said and done, the movie ends severely anticlimactically. It left me wanting something much grander in scale, something deserving of an epic – or any sort of high note.

That all being said, I did like At World’s End. It’s rigorously entertaining and definitely worth seeing. But the bar has been set too high by its predecessors. I shouldn’t be surprised – it’s almost impossible to deliver an effective conclusion in a series this popular (and good). But they do try, for every minute of the nearly three-hour runtime (contradictory to other reviews, I had no problems with the pacing – it flows well for how long it is). It ranks third for me, with two still being my favorite of the bunch. Side note: I missed it, but am told there’s an extra scene after the credits, so stick around. On its worst day this is still a fun flick – I mean, it’s pirates for crying out loud! It just sort of banks on that predisposition too much, as if Depp’s quotable dialogue rings as an excuse to forgive all – “You forgot one very important thing, mate... I’m Captain Jack Sparrow.”

My Rating: B