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

Walt Disney Studios and Jerry Bruckheimer touched gold with Johnny Depp in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. That one has been retitled with The Curse of the Black Pearl added to it to set it apart from the other two movies in the - thus far - trilogy franchise.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End debuted in theaters on May 24 and went on to rake in $58 million on the first day. With a long Memorial Day weekend in the offing, the latest film should haul in the swag, matey!

At more than two and a half hours of viewing time, fans are definitely getting their money’s worth in volume. However, there are some quality concerns. The plot is full of betrayal and alliance switching, some conflicting agendas, dropped plot lines, and rabbits out of a hat.

The second movie introduced a proposed romantic triangle between Jack, Elizabeth, and Will that just didn’t really get followed up on in this movie. It’s still there, but it’s like the writers found out a lot of the fans hated the idea of the triangle springing up out of nowhere (because it wasn’t alluded to in the first movie in any way) and decided to pull it out of the third movie.

Furthermore, the Brethren of Pirates bearing the nine pieces-of-eight (which jarred every time someone mentioned it) was never given any real weight in the first movie, then it had everything to do with the third. The history of the binding of Calypso came out of nowhere, and she appropriately vanished into the same thin air when she left.

The history between Davy Jones and Calypso was pretty good, but it felt like the story was woven into the pre-existing history of the second movie. (I’ve gotta check my Blu-ray discs of the second movie when it comes in to see if Calypso really wore the heart pendant that figured into this movie so prominently.) Then that story line just fell off the edge of the world at the end when, after such a big build-up, there should have been a bookend to finish it off.

The plot convolutions got to be hard to follow, and the constant switching of sides became a headache, though it played out well in the end. I had to work harder at this movie to stay up to speed, which is fine except that I’d earmarked it as a fun, casual movie where I could watch Johnny Depp pull off once more one of the most interesting characters to grace the movies in years.

One of the British Navy men said of Jack Sparrow, “Do you think he plans all this out, or just makes it up as he goes along?” or words to that effect. I couldn’t help but feel that way about the script. It was all well done, but some of it seemed to be plotting and twists of convenience.

Article Author: Mel Odom

Mel Odom is the author of over 100 novels. Winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award for 2002 and runner-up for the Christy in 2005, he's written in several genres, including tie-in novels for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and novelizations of Blade, XXX, and Tomb Raider. …

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