A Betrayal of the Original Story

Rating: 5/10 (5 June 2007)

There were three problems with PotC: At World's End...
1. Too long. This story could have been trimmed 30 minutes and been improved by it. A 3 hour movie betrays a total lack of editorial discipline.
2. Disasterously complex. By the beginning of the third hour, the audience is clear that everyone is trying to betray each other, but few will be clear on exactly why and how.
3. Worst of all, this screenplay is a betrayal of the original story. Jack Sparrow is a pirate, yes, but one can't imagine him making his living by murdering, raping, plundering coastal villages as Barbossa's crew did in "The Curse of the Black Pearl". The first "Pirates" movie had a pirate as a hero, yet stopped short of actually ADOCATING piracy. To the contrary, in "Curse", Jack Sparrow actually FOUGHT pirates (for his own selfish reasons, of course).
"At World's End" however has decided to portray pirates as freedom fighters and piracy as a quaint alternate life-style.
In the first movie, Jack's adversaries were pirates. In "Dead Man's Chest", the writers upped the ante by pitting him against the monstrous Davy Jones. But it appears that Davy Jones was not monstrous enough for the final installment. What could possibly be worse than a cruel, cold-blooded sea-tyrant with an octopus of a head? Why, an international corporation of course. How original.
Finally, the writers were so anxious to invoke contemporary politics into this story that the themes lead one to bizarre conclusions that the writers (surely) could not have intended. If the East India Company is a kind of George W. Bush administration, stripping civil liberties in a mad hunt for pirates, does that mean that the nine pirate lords are Al-Qaeda? Are we supposed to cheer for Al-Qaeda's victories as we are for pirates at the end of "At World's End"? Look, I know it its just an action movie and we aren't supposed to think that hard about it. But how can one be expected to turn off his brain while watching a movie this labyrinthine?