Brilliant! A roller-coaster finale to the trilogy

Rating: 9/10 (31 May 2007)

It's somewhat ironic that a film where the majority of the action takes place on the ocean is shallower than a millipede's paddling pool but in many ways, that is one of the great strengths of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Employing the same approach as the previous film, it is in no two minds of what kind of world it is set in. The original may have been grounded in reality despite its plethora of undead pirates, but At World's End is rooted firmly in a fantastical universe where normal rules do not apply and by the time a woman grows to nearly forty feet tall then turns into thousands upon thousands of crabs in the final third, there is no question that Pirates 3 is totally and utterly bonkers. It's also the most fun you can have while sitting in a darkened room with total strangers, shovelling popcorn into your mouth.
Beginning with a deceptively dark introduction where several dozen people are led to the gallows by the fascist East India Trading Company, Pirates rattles on rather quickly to Singapore, where Captain Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush) and co are set for a meeting with Chow Yun-Fat's Fu Manchu-style Pirate Lord, Sao Feng. One explosive brawl with a battalion of English marines later and the cast are off on a do-or-die mission to return Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) to the world of the living, unite the Pirate Lords and fight back against the tyrannical villains who are taking over the high seas.
Needless to say, not everything makes sense. Quite exactly how being eaten by a giant squid monster can send you to an otherworldly desert is never fully explained. Neither is how an entire ship can sail off the edge of the world and have everybody emerge unscathed. And with double crosses and triple crosses piling up in such a chaotic fashion that it becomes nigh on impossible to keep track of what exactly is going on, there'll be plenty of ammunition in the bag for anyone who hates this movie to fall back on. But it still doesn't detract from just how much fun this film is. It's a riotous blast through the high seas where a new set piece is always only a few minutes away and the closest a movie is ever likely to get to becoming a roller-coaster.
Sure, the bit where Elizabeth makes a big pre-battle speech and prattles on about freedom is cringe-worthy and the scene where she and Will get married in the midst of an apocalyptic battle is relentlessly stupid, but there's a very simple solution: just turn your brain off. That's right, turn it off. Don't worry about cohesion, character motives, emotional development or sub-textual references and just get caught up in it. After all, nobody who goes to Disneyland to ride Thunder Mountain is likely to sit there complaining about historical inaccuracies with the plastic mining equipment.
At World's End is naturally, a film that will divide audiences. There are already plenty of critics lining up to poke holes in it but there are just as likely to be those who revel in it as pure chaos gets played out on screen. Geoffrey Rush is clearly having a whale of a time, Johnny Depp is as charismatic as ever, Bill Nighy's Davy Jones is a formidable villain and by the time the blistering climactic ship battle has subsided, you'll likely be wondering if you'll see a more insane film all year.