Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End

Close your eyes.

I know they’re not closed because you’re reading this but I didn’t really mean it anyway. Imagine an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet Restaurant on US Route 57 between Chicago and Memphis. On your plate is the Great American Dream Meal: fried chicken, mashed potatoes (with brown gravy), green bean casserole, mac and cheese, a pasta salad thing, Jell-O (red), a bit of salad with ranch dressing, something with kidney beans, and a dollop of bread pudding hovering near the edge.

It’s a little disgusting, huh? But it’s All-You-Can-Freakin’-Eat, baby! Gots to chow down, yes? A little bit at a time is too much effort and somehow you’d feel cheated, having to get up over and over for a reasonable plateful each time you finished something – better to pile it all on one plate, so when you go for seconds it’s only your second time up to the heart attack bar – I mean, they have some rainbow-y looking prime rib over there, too!

The Hollywood rule of threequels is that it has to be more. More. MORE! With the first installment of a movie that was based on a Disney theme park ride, Johnny Depp pulled a performance out of his ass that made the impossible possible – the theme park movie was really pretty funny and the pirate movie was alive in spite of Renny Harlen suffocating it a few years earlier with Cutthroat Island. Not only that, it was a good movie – fun, funny, great effects and a unique and exciting approach to a genre most people had only seen on late night TV.

PotC: Dead Man’s Chest was a highly anticipated sequel, and it did not disappoint much – a bit overstuffed but introducing a character equally as quirky and fascinating as Depp’s Jack Sparrow, the squid-faced Davy Jones. Amazingly, Bill Nighy managed, through his eyes and his vocal cadence, to give a character whose entire existence was computer generated a sense of humanity and soul.

Article Author: Don Hall

Don Hall is the Founding Director of Chicago's pernicious Off Loop theater company, WNEP Theater and is an actor, director, writer and teacher in Chicago. He also is the Events Coordinator for Chicago Public Radio and the Audience Services Manager …

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