Pirates of the Caribbean: The Worst End

Rating: 4/10 (27 May 2007)

Will Turner, Elizabeth Swan and Captain Jack Sparrow are all back for their third movie, the aptly named Pirates of the Caribbean: at World's End, so called because half an hour in I was praying for nuclear holocaust. I exaggerate but I really do believe this could have been a hundred times better.
Continuing the proud tradition of the POTC movies, this one has more story lines than characters. This is a great achievement because the movie isn't lacking in characters as they keep coming back to life. The laws of quantum physics are bent, broken and sold for spare parts at various points resulting in numerous WTF moments including a woman who consists entirely of crabs, a regenerating fire monkey and ships armed with what I can only assume are homing cannonballs.
Aside from the obvious flaws of characters, plot, dialogue etc the film does have some saving graces. The first is the special effects which are, as expected, very impressive and, where permitted, realistic. The acting by and large is fairly good, apart from knightly who couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag. Another positive is Capt. Jack Sparrow. Depp again pulls off a slick brand of sickly charm held only by Sparrow and Russell Brand. Sparrow furthers his charm with the acquisition of additional personalities (all Jack Sparrow) and Depp's portrayal of these schizophrenic episodes provide some much needed comic relief in a sea of drab characters.
I would say that loyal fans of the Pirate series will enjoy this one. If you are not and especially if you missed number 1 or 2 you will be lost in the constant stream of dramatic betrayals and bizarre swashbuckling. I give Pirates of the Caribbean 3 a generous 4 fish monsters out of 10.