Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

This third installment is just as long, fixes some of the damages but adds along new ones. At Worlds End improves on its CGI magic but still possesses that dragging story that is just too long and confusing.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is the third and last of the money spinning trilogy, or so they say. Everything has led to this, or so they say again and I kept my mind opened. The first of the Pirates series, The Curse of the Black Pearl was good. It was a movie out of nothing or more correctly a movie inspired by nothing more than a Disney theme park ride. Having said that however the creation of Captain Jack Sparrow was nothing short of inspirational. Captain Jack played by the charismatic Johnny Depp became the talisman of Pirates of the Caribbean. Thought to be dead when we saw him charging into the jaws of monster octopus Kraken toward the end of Dead Man's Chest (the sequel), he is to be brought back from the dead in this latest film.

I have to be honest; I hated Dead Man's Chest. Its various plots and subplots were terribly tangled and confusing. It was hard to follow what sort of story or motives the movie wants to say. I blamed my lack of understanding for not comprehending Dead Man's Chest. That was summer of last year but since then I have done my research, for the billion dollars making movie was to have a third installment. Having seen one and two, I have to see three. But if I do not understand two then how can I go ahead with three. And so after a better understanding of two I saw three. You should know this. For all my efforts I was still robbed by the pirates.

I was led happily out into the open sea before being robbed. I was enjoying the first third of the 168 minutes film. Captain Jack's crew arrived in Singapore to look for Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fatt), pirate lord of the South China Sea for a ship and a map, so they could sail to world's end and rescue our favourite captain from Davy Jones's Locker. Davy Jones's Locker is a ghost realm of the netherworld where the dead Captain Jack Sparrow is being kept for eternity.

There appears to be some oriental influence in At World's End. Firstly of course we are introduced to a Chinese pirate, Captain Sao Feng. Secondly, the costumes and all were very well designed in an exquisite oriental fashion. And there was Singapore, a South East Asian country where Captain Sao Feng can be found.

The Singapore set features a bathhouse and I couldn't help relating it to Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. The popular animated film, released by Disney in the west has a bathhouse theme. The relation did not stop there, and I wondered if the scene where Captain Jack Sparrow is isolated in Davy Jones's Locker was inspired too by Hayao Miyazaki's work. The part where thousands of strange and curious yet harmless rounded stone-like crab helping Jack move his ship, The Black Pearl across a desert aroused my attention to this perspective. It was through the hands, eyes and imagination of the acclaimed animation master, Hayao Miyazaki that made famous the approach of detailing stories with thousands of mini little intriguing creatures. And it was fun to watch.

I was enjoying At World's End, laughing merrily at all the pirate jokes that the characters are lashing out at one another, feeling the thrill of the sword-fights and of course attracted to the sometimes witty, looney and mad character of Captain Jack Sparrow. That scene of him engaging himself to his many different personalities while alone in the deserted Davy Jones's Locker is a real gem.

But with all the oriental influences, the filmmakers probably did not take note of the teachings of Zen, where less is truly more. For when after the crew rescued Captain Jack Sparrow and brought him back to the mortal world, it all happened again. The tangling and confusing plots and subplots manifested once more and killed whatever is good about the film. In my opinion, if At World's End had ended after rescuing Captain Jack and had a straight approach in the gathering of forces to deal with Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) and Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) with a fitting spectacle of a finale fight, the film would have been great.

I was trying to understand the story. In reflection I probably should not for it amounted to nothing. It just isn't worth it. It would be tiring for me just to list them all out. So just be warned that in the film, every character have their own personal agenda. It is "me" first and "you" later if "you" are still there. If that is the purpose of the story-writers to represent the meaning of how pirates are, then they have succeeded. In fact it was so successful that they lost me.

It bored me so much I no longer laughed at the jokes. It dragged on so long I no longer felt compelled to see the ending. I just want the film to end there and then. Enough was enough.

"Take whatever you can and give nothing back." Thanks a billion, filmmakers, or is it thanks me instead?

This entire Pirate series is like a ride on a pirate ship in a theme park, it was thrilling for a start but as it swing back and forth too many times the nauseas will come and when it stops you find yourself displaced nowhere.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is a fine example of a good film gone bad because it had too many tangling tales to tell. I maintain that it is worth watching for the first third of the film but save yourself from seasickness in the middle just so you can enjoy the spectacular fight sequence toward the end.

Less than a year after the previous installment of the popular pirates trilogy, Jack Sparrow and company return in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The film should be great, given a three hundred million dollar budget, huge anticipation, and the closure a third installment inevitably brings to a series. While this film does show its budget and is quite visually arresting, it lacks a fair share of resolution to the trilogy and confuses with its overflowing exposition rather than purely existing to entertain.

Even in an action packed pirate movie, overly chatty sequences will simply bore audiences just because it's too hard to follow what exactly is being said. The movie really just had too many vague or unnecessary plot points that didn't affect the main plot at hand.

All the acting was perfectly fine, with Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow and Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbosa unsurprisingly being the standouts. The introduction of Depp's character in the pirate equivalent of Hell called Davy Jones' Locker is a particular favorite, as well as the scenes at World's End, which somehow involves a giant, deep waterfall. Keith Richards' hyped cameo as Jack's father is nothing to go crazy for, he does a decent job, but his screen time lasts only about two minutes.

Director Gore Verbinski and his crew knew going into this that the reviews would be mixed and the plot would be confusing (in order to encourage repeat viewings), but honestly, at nearly three hours, the more the film confuses you the more it becomes an endurance test. Also, rather than providing a satisfying conclusion to the series, the end opens up the possibility for a fourth installment, which might not even happen. The crew put every penny of the film's budget on screen, made evident in the hour or so of its bloated climax. The film looks and feels like a true epic, shots are wide, locations are vast, costumes are extravagant, and the scope is large. However, the film needs to scale down its plot in order to let the characters we fell in love with stand out and shine, as that's what makes these films unique.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007, Dir. Gore Verbinski)

After losing Jack Sparrow to the locker of Davy Jones, the team of Will Turner, Elizabeth Swan and Captain Barbossa make their final alliances with the pirate world to take on the forces of Lord Cutler Beckett and his crew, including Davy Jones, who he now has control over. It's not going to be easy, as they must rescue Sparrow, convince all the pirate lords to join them and defeats Beckett, whilst each individual pirate has their own route which they wish to follow.

It's often a sad time for me, when i see a trilogy come to an end. There are so many great characters that you really do start to miss them. Unfortunately, trilogies always seem to have the problem are living up to the previous movies. 'At World's End' falls into this category. The characters are great as always with Geoffrey Rush bringing Barbossa back to life as much as he did in the first movie. The special effects are amazing again, with some beautiful crafted fight sequences and Davy Jones looking even more realistic. The music is fun again but disappointing compared to the first two films. The main problem with this film is the story. It's not the most easy to follow story and can really make you think for a bit. Still, the third 'Pirates' movie is a roller-coaster of a movie.

"Do you fear death?" - Davy Jones (Bill Nighy)

AWE was a decent close to the trilogy (although they did leave it open for the possibility of a 4th).

Lets go down the list: 1) Holy cow. The CGI is breathtaking. The details on the sets is just as breathtaking. The filming sites were beautiful. These are a talented group of folks I tell ya. GREAT job.

2) Acting .. both good and bad. Sparrow, Barbossa, Beckett, Norrington, Jones, and Gibbs provided some very good acting and funny moments. However, they were offset by Pintel and Ragetti (they got annoying in the 2nd film and it didn't stop here. While I enjoyed the idea of Tia Dalma's character, I wasn't impressed with the performance by beautiful Miss Harris. I haven't especially liked Keira all that much in other things she has done and it was the same here. Decent actress but not overly impressive. Stellan's portrayal of Bill Turner was decent enough but a notch down from what we KNOW he can do. Now the best for last. Im a 100% hetero male and even I can say that Orlando Bloom is a VERY good looking guy. But for the love of pete, this guy is one of the most terrible actors ever and strangely, he was cast in two of the biggest, most profitable trilogies ever. He has essentially played the same character in every movie, just with different costumes. His mannerisms, his low "sexy" voice, his facial expressions .. ALLLL the same, all the time. Sooo blahhhhhhh.

3) The story was good but there was too much of it. It has been said here but I will say it again. At one point, I just stopped trying to follow along and just enjoyed it. Everyone stabbed everyone else in the back at least once. It wasn't "hard to follow" but a movie like this isn't supposed to make you think. You want that, go see .... Clue :P the whole Singapore thing was just unneeded. While it did add a new element to the film, it just seemed too forced.

4) Running time was a tad bit long but it passed fairly quickly due to the great action sequences.

All in all .. I was impressed with the movie, but it has its problems. Much like part 2.

I say go and see it. You wont be disappointed but you wont walk out thinking you just saw a masterpiece either.

Just my thoughts ...