The most entertaining movie in years

Rating: 9/10 (29 June 2007)

The first Pirates of the Caribbean, released in 2001 to a skeptical and wary public, was an instant classic that broke box office records and stunned critics worldwide. The second film, while it paled in comparison to its predecessor, was still a great popcorn movie that became the third highest-grossing film of all time. Pirates three certainly had a tough act to follow when it came out, and I was very worried that it wouldn't live up to the hype like Shrek and Spider-Man. Fortunately, it did.
POTC 3 wiped the floor with Dead Man's Chest and was nearly as good as the original in terms of entertainment. The acting, sets, humor and action were all superb, and standout scenes never ceased. Although it is almost three hours long, at World's End never seems to drag,and this movie will have you riveted from the beginning to the climactic finale.
The acting was almost uniformly superb. Jonny Depp stole the show as usual( I can just never get tired of his character!) but the other actors were fantastic too. Geoffrey Rush was even better this time around, as he had much more screen time, and Bill Nighy played Davy Jones (one of my all-time favorite villains) to perfection. I LOVED Mackenzie Crook and Lee Arenberg. Their conflicting personalities and stupid, yet strangely erudite conversation made for metric tons of laughs. Most of the other characters were great too, especially Sao Feng and Gibbs. Even Kiera Nightly and Orlando Bloom did well this time around.
At World's End is on a much bigger scale than previous Pirates movies, with bigger battles, more grandiose sets, more plot lines and many more characters. However, unlike others have claimed it would, POTC 3 never confused me, and I thought the plot was genuinely good.
POTC 3 is certainly the most visually impressive of the three, and you can really see were its 300 million (million!) dollar budget went to. There are a number of eye-popping CGI scenes that look so real you'll swear that they were filmed in real life. The sets are absolutely phenomenal( if you don't gasp when you see the pirate city of Shipwreck, seek your psychiatrist before it's too late), and the battle scenes look absolutely incredible. The final battle was a masterpiece of choreographing and CGI, and is definitely one of my favorite fight scenes of all time.
At World's End is not perfect. The ending was somewhat lackluster and some of the plot lines could have finished more satisfactorily. Also, I was sad that Norrington and Gov. Swann had miniscule roles, as I believe that they could have added a lot to this movie. Nevertheless, At World's End is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time and a fitting conclusion to great trilogy.