Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

You sometimes need a flow chart to figure out who is doing what to whom and why in the third – and final (?) – Pirates of the Caribbean film . . .

Review by : James O'Ehley

What do you mean I'm being "downsized"?

Like the previous film the talky plot bits in-between merely serve to connect the various action set pieces. Sometimes you wish that they would hurry things along because you're not always clear as to what exactly is happening. The intricate plotting involves a myriad of characters with murky motives and at times it is difficult to actually care about onscreen proceedings. You're simply impatient to get round to the next impressive special effects sequence.

Part of the problem is the unintelligible dialogue. Seriously, the last time I had such a tough time figuring out what characters were busy saying it was with the various “local” dialects in Brokeback Mountain. One character's pidgin Jamaican was particularly hard to decipher, but so often was the “Rrrr me mateys” style of dialogue which was frequently shouted.

Luckily director Gore Verbinski seems to have realised that the talky plot bits are slowing down the action and tries to hurry things along. (If you haven't seen any of the previous Pirates movies you'd be completely lost of course. Pirates 2 and 3 are practically the same movie and it is recommended that you maybe rewatch it again before seeing this latest movie.) About halfway into the movie the plot started becoming clearer. Still, some less convoluted storytelling and plot clarity of the sort that made the first film such a hit would have been nice.

See, ultimately Pirates 3 suffers from the same problems that marked the previous film: there are simply too many characters and a plot that tries too hard to bring them all together in a sensible manner.

But have no fear: Pirates 3 still makes for fine entertainment and a swell time at the cinema. The movie kicks off on a dark tone by breaking one of Hollywood 's most hallowed unwritten laws (hint: it involves the fate of children). Then, with Han Solo frozen in Carbonite, his friends Luke and Leia infiltrate Jabba the Hut's lair to rescue him by . . . Oh sorry. Wrong trilogy.

With Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) dead his cohorts Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) and Will Turner (Bloom) lead a motley crew to rescue the good Captain from the Kingdom of the Dead itself.

After all, what would the franchise be without Johnny Depp and his inspired performance? (Why, you'd have Star Wars without Harrison Ford, and . . . well . . . um . . . we all know what that would be like . . .) So they obtain a map from a reluctant pirate named Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat) and once you think you have the upside down world of the Pirates movie pegged, they throw in some unexpectedly surreal scenes that might as well have been written by Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett and would feel right at home in any of the big screen Monty Python movies.

While they are well done, the action sequences aren't as inspired in their slapstick comedic way that the previous two films were. Also, the film's unremitting climax involving two ships slugging it out in the middle of a storm is so loud and quickly edited that it pummels the audience practically into submission. One is seldom allowed any breathers in the action so as to enjoy the cleverness of it all as one could with for instance some of the Buster Keaton-ish sequences in the previous film.

If the gruesomeness of the previous film put you off, there is some more of it in display here. In one sequence a character pulls off his frozen toe for instance. Luckily, the wit of the previous films is still present, both in some unexpected humorous sequences and Depp's dialogue. As an in-joke Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones also makes a cameo appearance (Depp claimed in interviews that he based his performance on Richards' real life demeanour – but it is difficult to deduce that from Richards' performance in this movie).

So, a case of more of the same then, plus the film's finale hints at a possible sequel. All well and fine. The Pirates movies have been lots of fun in their own Saturday matinee-ish way and you probably won't feel that you've wasted your time with this latest instalment, particularly if you've enjoyed the previous two films.

But all future instalments should ditch the Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly characters as they aren't all that interesting ultimately. Instead it should try something new and fresh. But with Captain Jack Sparrow of course . . .

(By the way, the finale hints at an object that viewers who saw Darren Aranovsky's The Fountain would be familiar with.)