Review of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) by Anastasia . — 01 Jan 2014

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End serves as the end of the trilogy of Pirates of the Caribbean films which features tales of Elizabeth Swan and William "Will" Turner Jr., so it sounded good enough, and the general consensus seemed to be that it was almost as good as it's predecessor which I found about as impressive as Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

Yeah, that was a big misfire, because Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End managed to collapse under a collapsed plot structure of dead plot threads, it it really ruined the whole experience.

The plot is way too excessively convoluted in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and it's impossible to grasp everything that is going in because it tries to fit way too much in but doesn't bother to explain most of it. It does nothing to understand the concept of Davy Jones' locker or the location of the end of the world, neither the concept of bringing the cursed back from the dead or how a song can suddenly being together so many pirates. It is chock full of excessively confusing plot threads which never really tie themselves together and make the story a hundred misfires all packed into the same 168 minutes. This makes it more difficult to watch, because 3 hours of too many poor stories to comprehend is not an appealing factor for a film, particularly one which has more talking than Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and less action. If more action was in there and it was better balanced over an extensive period, perhaps it wouldn't suck so much. But that isn't the case, and so Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is surely the worst in the series.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End presents too many new ideas and characters to the franchise while refusing to even pretend to understand either of them, instead using them as cluttered eye candy for the screen, and so it's difficult to pretend to care about any of them. And since apparently when characters die its easy as hell to get them back, it doesn't even matter. Nothing makes sense, and not even director Gore Verbinski could have understood this mess he spent $300 million creating. Clearly his ambitious scope is too big but he is too unclear of what he's doing.

And the script is not only unintelligent, but it's loaded with recycled jokes which rarely succeed and just come off as being weak and forced cartoonish writing. Even Captain Jack Sparrow's jokes are ridiculous, many of them being even a bit too ridiculous for Jack Sparrow. Just consider that for a second, too ridiculous for Jack Sparrow. Rarely did I laugh, but more often I cringed to have to listen to all the old rum jokes and predicable script lines.

And while Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End did have visual appeal, it was milked for all it could be while the rest of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End was just waiting for something much better to happen which never came.

So built on insufficient action, a poor script and a horribly sporadical storyline, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End does nothing more than squander $300 million and it's talented cast on a bloated terrible film.

But like I said, the cast is still good enough.

Although Captain Jack Sparrow's comedic lines aren't that good and his gestures are all old news, Johnny Depp still gets the role perfectly with plenty of energy and charisma which ensures that fans of him should at least be satisfied by his lively performance.

Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom also supply a good spirit, even though the latter receives way too little screen time so which leaves his character to be pushed into the background.

Geoffrey Rush also manages to really dominate the screen at his command in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and his powerhouse aggression is stronger than ever, which is a nice surprise and is the one area in which Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End surpasses its predecessors.

But nevertheless, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End didn't even make sense at nearly 3 hours that it spent not bothering to explain itself.