I Wanted to Abandon Ship

Rating: 5/10 (25 May 2007)

Ah, what might have been. When I saw the first installment of this series, I thought this franchise definitely has legs. Then "Dead Man's Chest" was released and I changed my mind. Still I had hope for "At World's End", assuming that Disney and Gore Verbinski would have listened to the multitude of groans that welled up after that nonsensical mess. But alas, no. It appears the plan for the third film was to try and be all things to all people without a care for good storytelling.
The pacing was astonishingly bad and even when an effort was made to pick up the pace you were forced to deal with ridiculous subplot points such as Will and Elizabeth being married by Barbosa during the climactic battle between the Black Pearl and The Flying Dutchman. Cannon balls crashing, swords flailing, but the wedding must take place now! What was that? Quite frankly, I never saw an ounce of chemistry between Will and Elizabeth in the first place, much less enough for them to have this overpowering need to be married in the middle of a sea battle. Utterly ridiculous.
And if you're thinking that Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow will save the day, guess again. Smiling Jack doesn't even show up until 40 minutes into this 3 hour bore fest and is used sparingly throughout. While Depp's character appears in several scenes, he rarely drives the action. Instead his trademark "sheepishly confused" facial expressions seem to be his most frequent contribution. That, or him quarreling with other incarnations of himself for no reason whatsoever. This happens twice by the way. Why?
As with most tent-pole summer flicks these days, this movie ultimately comes to rely on eye-popping CGI and cute furry animals to win over the audience. And I don't doubt that's all it takes if you're under 17 or share Paris Hiltons' IQ score, but some of us want more.
How about giving us some characters to actually care about. Other than Depp's "Smiling Jack", I couldn't care less about the rest of this massive ensemble. And although this storyline was easier to follow than the last, it was constantly polluted with plot point roadblocks. It seemed as if the Disney Marketing department wrote this script. I can almost hear those guys working it out...
"Okay, we have to have a bunch of CGI for the teens." Check.
"We'll need a cute furry animal for the preteens." Check.
"We need to somehow make Elizabeth "the pirate king" so women see a strong female character." "But won't that seem a little implausible?" "Nah, we'll just distract the audience by putting Steven Tyler in the scene for no logical reason." "Good idea." Check
The list goes on, but I fear this review is getting just as long and boring as the movie. This isn't a terrible flick and I'm sure everyone will get something out of it, but it just seems to me that if you have that much money and that much talent to spend it on, the final result should measure up. Unfortunately "At Worlds's End" doesn't.