Totally substandard Part 3 to Pirates

Rating: 4/10 (3 June 2007)

Parents of younger children should be aware there is a very unpleasant first scene, especially relating to a young boy, that might cause some distress. And there's one particularly sordid sex "joke" later in the movie that Disney should be ashamed of.
Black Pearl was always going to be a hard movie to follow as was so amazingly unexpected superlative fun, full of surprises. World's End is a HUGE disappointment. Full of visual delights and great music again, but the storyline is incomprehensible - someone behind me remarked during the interval exactly what I was thinking - "What is going on?" It's even worse if you can't remember or didn't understand everything in Pirates 2 which is also confused at times but nothing like as much as this one. There is also an immense amount of background noise in Pirates 3 with sea sounds and fighting and music all of which is tremendously atmospheric and I love it but it does at times drown out what some actors are saying.
It's hard at times to tell who's supposed to be the star of this movie. It's absolutely ages before wonderful Jack Sparrow appears on screen. His whole part in this movie is so mediocre I felt really angry at the waste of this great star's talents and especially as Jack is the centrepiece of Pirates. I expected him to be on screen nearly all the time. Instead it seems Keira Knightley has become the star as she's continually shoved at us in spite of being completely out of her depth, as a raucous masculinised harridan bellowing and bawling when she's inexplicably made the Pirate Leader. It was bad enough that she was taken away from the partnership with Orlando Bloom and pitched against Johnny Depp in Dead Man's Chest forcing Depp to have to underact persistently in a number of extremely boring and silly scenes with her. In this movie it's far worse as she not only has to act against Depp but also against several other experienced and very strong actors - notably Geoffrey Rush but also Chow Yun Fat (much under-used, regrettably), and also mysterious and superlative Calypso who would have been an excellent foil to Depp but instead is placed as Davy Jones's lover. Knightley just isn't experienced enough nor suited to be more than Will's feisty girl-friend in this story.
I suppose this elevation of Knightley to top star or equal top star is intended to demonstrate equal rights for women or an increased earning power since a great deal of studio publicity put out about her in recent times.
As for Will, his lovely character in Pirates 1 and acceptable part in Pirates 2 have now become a mediocrity frantically searching for his dead father who's on the Dutchman ship, in order to save him; and confusingly seeming to switch from side to side. But most of the time Will is either missing from the screen or given little to do when visible. There's an attempt eventually to raise his profile in killing him off so he can become the Dutchman's legendary captain but brave decent Will isn't remotely suited to this tragic fate - compare with the marvellous performance by James Mason in an old movie years ago. Bloom does his best with his parting from Elizabeth whose harridanship has calmed down a bit at last. I heard a child in the audience anguishedly exclaim no, no, when Will is killed and I echoed that.
Jack, however, goes back to basics in the last scene  a brilliant reminder of the start of Black Pearl. But it's only a cameo. How much better this movie would be if Jack had become captain of the Dutchman and sailed the seas forever as he wants to do. Instead he deliberately allows Will to die and be forced into that role after an infuriatingly bad scene.
Geoffrey Rush is absolutely marvellous and has a far better part than Depp - this time they aren't equals as Depp has so little worthwhile script. Again I couldn't abide Bill Nighy's Davy Jones octopus facemask, it's horrid, and I couldn't remember why he was crawling to the British villain. Wonderful to see Keith Richard as Jack's father but why for only a few minutes on screen? Heroic Norrington (Jack Davenport) who was so splendid as Elizabeth's other suitor in Pirates 1 and 2 is completely wasted in Pirates 3 other than in an heroic death. There's a nice cameo for Jonathan Pryce as Elizabeth's dead father.
By the way, when the sea battle started, the East India Company ships must have numbered in the dozens or even hundreds, filling the skyline. Then the EIC flagship has a fight with the 2 main pirate ships and all the EIC ships must have made off because they don't join the fight and next thing we know, the 2 pirate ships have won and there's no sign of any other EIC ships.
It seems there's a post-credits scene. But of course we didn't see it and I wonder if anyone in our cinema did as I expect the credits lasted as credits usually do these days for about 10 mins. I do hate it when film makers set out to trick us like this, presumably in order to force us to see the movie again or buy the DVD to find out what we missed. But a kind person in the blogs has given us the detail - thanks for that.