Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

This is the summer of threequels. Some are made to finish off a story and some are made as just another series of wacky adventures. Both are made as a cash grab for the studio. I find it sad that I too have been trained by Hollywood to anticipate these “cookie-cutter” features over original edgy material. By creating sequels, the film industry has created such high expectations for their movies that they can rarely live up to them. Everyone knows that there will be comparisons to the original, which are often found to be far superior because of its originality. Look at what happened to The Matrix. It is now up to audience members to lower their excitement in order to be blown away by the latest Hollywood offering. Luckily for me, Spiderman 3 already let all the air out of my expectations so I can try to enjoy these sequels based on their own merit. But who am I kidding, the comparisons are bound to come out.

Let’s get the blockbuster ball rolling with Pirates of the Caribbean III: At World’s End. Actually the III shouldn’t be there because the studio doesn’t want you to know it’s a sequel. By this rationale they should be able to sell the movie without the Pirates moniker and just name it At World’s End just like Return of the Jedi. C’mon, people don’t call it Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, do they? But I digress. Let’s talk about the movie.

I found Pirates to be blah. I went in looking forward to seeing all the story lines that were introduced in Dead Man’s Chest to be resolved. I left not caring. The problem that I have with these movie is all the double crossing. Now I realize that we are dealing with pirates and these aren’t the most trust-worthy people in the world but this installment had ten characters switching from one side to another. First they’re on this ship, then they’re considered the property of this ship, then they steal this other ship. At the end of the day, I really have no idea who I am supposed to be rooting for. Am I supposed to want Will to save his father, or do I want him to marry Elizabeth, do I want Jack to get his ship back, am I supposed to like Barbossa now, do I want Davy Jones to find the girl of his dreams? I don’t know and maybe I’m not supposed to care. I guess I should be rooting for Jack since he’s the one we tend to see the most of (in more ways than one in this movie). While I love the energy his performance brings to the screen, I prefer to see Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow in smaller funnier doses.

My biggest disappointment about Pirates III was its lack of sword-fighting. I’ll admit I wasn’t a huge fan of the second installment but it sure had some awesomely fun three-way sword duels. It was the highlight of the movie for me. This episode only has one on a mast with the incredible balance of Jones and Sparrow. I’m not really into ship fights. The big whirlpool was cool but cannons and swinging from ship to ship is kind of ho-hum for me. I did find it funny that with all the pirate ships banded together and all the East Coast Trading Company ships ready to attack, we only saw two ships fighting each other. Maybe they were representing their team or something.

A lot of people have told me how much they didn’t like Keira Knightly and the fact that she’s forever making out with half the cast. Well, I think she’s hot so those scenes didn’t bother me at all. What did bother me were the previews. I am fine with movie trailers before a film but we were treated to the Feature Presentation fanfare then subjected to two more previews. I wonder if that was just in my theatre?

So if you haven’t seen Pirates III already, should you see it in the theatres? I think so. The action scenes do lend themselves well to the big screen. Like I said, the whirlpool does look cool, as does a fun ship-tipping scene. Of course, if you think sitting in the theatre for three hours is ridiculous and painful, you may want to wait for the DVD.