What did I just see?

Rating: 5/10 (4 December 2007)

As a big fan of the first film and one of the few people who genuinely enjoyed the second one, I have to say that At World's End was pretty dreadful. There were so many characters, all with their own elaborate plots and motivations but not in a "Wow, this movie is so beautiful and complex" kind of way. More in a "What the hell is happening? Why are they doing that?" kind of way. It seemed like they tried to throw in as many characters and plots as possible and that would make the best film, but it turned out horribly. I spent half the time being completely confused as to whom was fighting whom and for what reason, and everyone just popped in and out of the situations and disappeared back into nowhere with no real explanation. The addition of this insane amount of pirate lords just made me wonder where all of these characters were in the first two films when everyone was fighting over an enormous amount of gold and being destroyed by The Flying Dutchman. Speaking of The Flying Dutchman, the fact that they actually managed to make Davey Jones frightening in the first film was ruined by making him a pushover in this one, just like every other character.
The acting is all outrageously flat or completely artificial, sans Geoffrey Rush who unfortunately came back for this one. It just always felt like the characters knew ten times more about the situation than we did and the audience was supposed to look past that because of all the cool explosions. Every character had in-depth plots and backstories but we see two seconds of that and then move on to the next person. The humor is virtually gone, with a few laughs here and there but for a franchise that builds itself on mixing quirky humor with big action it's lacking in the comedy and tries to make up for it by increasing immensely with the action. Depp, who generally provided all of the comic relief in the first two, is stuck doing lame schtick where he sees different versions of himself that made me laugh...once. That being said it still manages to be entertaining for the parts where I wasn't completely lost and I actually liked the ending, even though it felt like it was never going to come. A letdown, surely.