Awful Way to End the Trilogy

Rating: 3/10 (21 November 2007)

Wow! Summer is here and marking it for the summer movie season is the third installment in the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' series named 'At World's End'. You see, if I named the film, instead of 'At World's End', I'd name it 'The Film that Never Ends'. A 2 hour and 48 minute runtime for a popcorn Disney flick is not stupid, IT'S F__KING PSYCHOTIC!!! If you thought the second film was a pointless, annoying, ass-numbing experience (ass-numbing because you're constrained to a dinky little movie theater chair for hours at a time), you have no idea. Brace yourself, I used to think the cruelest form of torture was castration, but not after seeing 'Pirates of the Caribbean 3'. If someone walked up to me and told me I had to sit through Pirates 3 one more time, I'd most likely cut my own balls off.
The third installment takes off where the second film left off. Captain Jack Sparrow is lost in the cabinet of Davey Jones and.... you know what -- F_CK IT! Do we even care about the over-the-top, ridiculous, and hard to follow plot? I don't think so. I think the biggest reason people sit through through these piece of sh__t movies is because of Johnny Depp. Another reason would be horny teenage boys who for some reason despite the PG-13 rating, think Keira Knightley might by some chance get naked. The third reason would be horny teenage girls who think the same thing, except applied to Orlando Bloom. But back to what I was saying, the plot in 'Pirates 3' is terrible. Sure it's complex, but complex doesn't mean it's coherent. It's all over the place, and it will make your brain hurt if you attempt to figure everything out.
The action sequences are well-made and entertaining, but after a certain point watching them gets to be an exhausting experience. At the 2-hour mark of 'Pirates 3' I was ready to leave, but stayed in hopes that for some act of God it might get better. It didn't. Big freakin' surprise. From an acting stand-point the movie isn't half-bad though. Johnny Depp is as hysterical and scene-stealing he can be with poorly-written and cheesy dialogue, and Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush is exquisetley over-the-top as the villain pirate turned hero. Orlando Bloom is as flat as always, and Keira Knightley is average at best (but not bad to look at.) The members of the supporting cast are decent enough -- veteran actors Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Still Crazy) and Stellan Skarsgaard (Insomnia, The Exorcist: The Beginning) are great in their roles, Chow Yun-Fat is annoying to say the least in his role but doesn't break character, and Naomie Harris as the Voodoo woman would be better if she wasn't so over-the-top.
In my review you probably noticed I used the phrase 'over-the-top' several times. That is because that statement pretty much sums up 'Pirates 3'. It's too much. Too much plot, too many drawn-out action sequences, too much cheesy dialogue, too many characters, etc. Although it isn't the absolute worst movie I've seen, it's one of the most painful to sit through. I don't mind three hour movies, in fact I love three hour movies. 'The Godfather' and 'Schindler's List' are two of my all-time favorite films. I just like three hour movies that are, say Oscar-caliber material, because if I'm going to sit in a theater for three hours, I BETTER be blown away. Sitting through this movie made me want to cry. I used to think rape was the worst thing that could happen to someone, then I sat through this movie. OKAY, I'm being a tiny bit melodramatic, but still, it's pretty goddamn awful. These three hour pirate movies need to stop-- what the hell do they think a film editor is for?! Dear Mr. Film Editor of Pirates 3 -- DO YOU F__KING JOB!!!!!!!!. Grade: D+