Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End 2007

[5.8/10] In the climax of Pirates at the Caribbean: At World’s End, a maelstrom erupts. Ships swirl around one another in the massive vortex. Indistinct combinations of pirates, British soldiers, and assorted mermen leap from one ship to another and cross swords. The combination of rain and cannonfire and whirling destruction makes it nigh-impossible to distinguish friend from foe or hold your bearings amid the supernatural skirmish.

It is an exhausting set piece: cacophonous, muddy, and endlessly busy without ever really finding a clear throughline for the action. Instead, it becomes a torrent of undifferentiated gray goop, flying across the screen with little point or purpose. That is, sadly, a microcosm of the movie itself.

At World’s End does contain good stories and good ideas. Jack Sparrow having a taste of the afterlife and wanting to avoid a repeat engagement at all costs is a good motivation. Will Turner being forced to test his loyalty to his fiancee against his loyalty to his father is a good moral dilemma. Elizabeth Swan seeking revenge for her father’s murder is a good driving impulse. Commodore Norrington trying to earn his redemption after his earlier betrayal is a good character beat. Davy Jones and Calypso as supernatural jilted lovers is a good concept. The fall of piracy and rise of commerce on the open seas is a good animating theme for the picture.

But by god, you just cannot do them all at once or, at the very least, you cannot do them all justice, even in the span of a bloated, nearly three-hour movie. Despite that overextended runtime, and all of that ground to cover, At World’s End still can’t justify its length. For a movie where there is constantly something happening, usually something that’s theoretically important, it is a remarkably boring film.

That’s largely because with so many plots and schemes and shifting alliances, the film still lacks the time or the real estate to really explore any of those ideas in depth, let alone find inventive ways to blend them with one another. Everything has to be done in shorthand. Major plot developments happen in a few quick scenes before it's onto the next thing, leaving each event feeling weightless. There’s plenty of incidents in the movie -- it hardly takes a moment to catch a breath -- but each feels more airy and threadbare than the last.

The one saving grace in the thing is Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbosa. Liberated from the burden of having to play the villain, he’s free to chew scenery with abandon. As a comic side character an ally, Barbosa is just too much fun, leaning into the pirate speak and faux-grandiosity with aplomb and livening every scene he occupies.

Were that the same could be said for Jack Sparrow. If you thought the character was overexposed after the last movie, just wait until there’s literally a dozen of him on screen at the same time. Depp’s tic-filled performance was a breath of fresh air when the first movie came out, but here he’s a reminder that not all side dishes should be the main course. There’s something to the idea of him being extra mad after his stop in Davy Jones’s Locker, and his anxiety-ridden quest for immortality has some juice, but after nearly eight hours of movie, his act soon starts to grow tiresome.

That’s almost impressive in a movie with far too many characters for any one to really command the screen or the script. Beckett is nominally the film’s big bad and gets an implausible but artsy demise, but it doesn’t mean anything since all he’s done for two movies is spout villain clichés rather than become a full-fledged character. Calypso and Davy Jones’s romance is one of the few compelling romantic angles in these films, but it ends with minimal closure as the former essentially just disappears and the latter dies after about a half-second of crying over her precipitation. Even Will is sidelined for much of the picture, more passenger than driver in the third chapter of what was once a trilogy.

Maybe there would be more time for trifling things like character development if there weren’t so much damn plot and additional lore. While there’s something to be said for engaging in some additional worldbuilding for the age of pirates, halfway through movie #3 is a little late in the day for a historical exposition dump. Who’s secretly in league with whom, and who’s working on a hidden agenda, and who’s about to dramatically change sides leaves the narrative here even more convoluted than the one in Dead Man’s Chest, robbing the story of any force and smothering the movie’s charms in byzantine plot.

Some of this might be more tolerable if the damn thing were just more fun. But no, this is Serious Business:tm: now and must be treated as the epic it’s intended to be. Every once in a while, the irreverence and swashbuckling joie de vivre of the original peaks through (see: the mid-fight marriage), but this is largely a slog. Even the action set pieces, a highlight in Curse of the Black Pearl, are overblown and less-engaging this time around, as the combination of familiarity and overreliance on the usual CGI hodgepodge renders most of the big moments all but inert.

That absolutely extends to the film’s climactic final fight, where every major character is scrambled together in a wash of cutlasses and cannonballs. It’s nigh-impossible to follow the action from moment-to-moment, trace cause and effect, or maintain that type of energy for a half-hour of indiscriminate explosions.

But by god, At World’s End tries, not just in that overdone closing battle, but in the movie as a whole, which succumbs to the same problems on a larger scale. If it could be broken into its constituent parts and provide each with enough time and space to be developed, there’s at least three or four solid flicks that could be wrung from all Gore Verbinski try to pack in here. Instead, we get an ungainly film that loads far too much onto what was once a sleek, zippy ship, until it can do nothing else but sink.

I find that my favorite Pirates movie constantly changes but this installment I always found especially entertaining.

The movie has an odd sort of musical opening but it works for me and even gives me goosebumps.

With nearly 3 hours it's a long adventure and I do feel that length every time. However it keeps my attention for the most part and it has easily the best action scenes in the entire series. The epic fights, particularly the Maelstrom and the slow-motion destruction of the Endeavour, are visually stunning.

All the characters in this movie are fun and very well portrayed, Geoffrey Rush probably being my favorite portraying Barbossa. Although I do miss the scarier side of Barbossa and the more mysterious / creepy Davy Jones.

I do find that the ending drags on a bit, that is to say, there are a bunch of endings for all the different characters. However I do love the Elizabeth-Will ending on the beach. It's a beautiful scene with my favorite score from this movie, 'One Day', composed by the legendary Hans Zimmer.

The ending teases the plot for the fourth movie which sadly is my least favorite of the series.

I know it's not the best of the series but it's an incredibly entertaining movie that delivers a satisying conclusion to the original trilogy.

THE UGLY: ‘PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END’

WRITING: 40
ACTING: 80
LOOK: 90
SOUND: 85
FEEL: 55
NOVELTY: 60
ENJOYMENT: 40
RE-WATCHABILITY: 45
INTRIGUE: 40
EXPECTATIONS: 25

THE GOOD:

The trademark humour, great swashbuckling action and breathtaking production design remain intact in the third Pirates entry. The bombastic look and sound that was slowly introduced in the previous instalment reach their full bloom here, making At World’s End the darkest and most fantastical entry in the franchise.

Elizabeth Swann receives loads of love by finally unleashing the pirate inside her. She is the most fleshed-out and well-treated character within the main trio and Keira Knightley seems to have a great time playing her.

The constant bickering between Jack and Barbossa is hilarious, and Depp and Rush truly seem to have a great time together. These moments are what remains of the characteristic fun and warmth of the first film.

Some of the action set pieces and ideas present (particularly in the first half at the titular world’s end) are inventive and some of the best in the franchise.

THE BAD:

Forgetting the simple joys of piracy, adventure and swashbuckling for a CGI shitfest and a story riddled with subplots, characters and lengthy battles, not to mention politics, some weird faith-based shenanigans and forced romantic tension is not a smart move. The script is too busy, too heavy and too nonsensical to feel satisfying.

At World's End crumbles under the weight of its story, characters and all the politics and subplots thrown in. By the time we reach the lengthy final battle, we are already numb from everything that comes before it.

The script makes Will Turner an unlikable douchebag to create artificial tension. I dislike the way Will is treated in this film because he is such an unsympathetic brat.

The climactic battle is long and unnecessarily dragged out, to the point where it stops being entertaining. It looks epic and such, but it just feels like too much.

The plot adds plenty of pirate politics, religious beliefs and other cultural phenomena that help fleshing out the world but also dry out most of the adventure and fun from the film. There's too much going on, and half of it isn't interesting. I was hoping for a return to the smaller-scale magic of the first film.

First, they spend a good chunk of the film introducing us to pirate lords and setting up a war between a pirate fleet and the East India Trading Company, then they completely sideline the pirate fleet and resolve the war with three ships. That feels like a waste of runtime for pointless build-up.

THE UGLY:

Best. Wedding. Scene. Ever.

THE VERDICT:

The final film of the original Pirates trilogy brings the franchise to an epic but unsatisfying and overstuffed temporary close.

56% = :heavy_minus_sign: = UGLY