Yo-Ho Yo-Ho, The Pirate's Life I Flee

Rating: Null/10 (14 July 2007)

I think this was probably bound to fail. Like "Dead Man's Chest," it doesn't stray far from the first film in terms of execution. It must have to do with the inevitable dissolution of the initially thin concept, sabotaged also by the upheld conventions of movie trilogies that (1) new characters must be introduced late and be piled on thick, and (2) the action must be louder and more calamitous than ever.
These apparent laws of the Epic Trilogy were, I think, founded with Tolkien and "The Lord of the Rings" although he was against the publisher's dividing the story into three portions. The arc in the last book -- of an escalating scale and shifting focus from the personal to the universal -- spilled over into Peter Jackson's film adaptations, which turned out OK because Jackson's work was derived directly from the founder of this accidental arc that yet managed to retain strong character and theme.
But the same structure applied to other ventures in filmdom has failed infamously, a particularly glaring example being the third "Matrix" movie. And this one's only slightly less of a disaster because the franchise's cosmology somehow continues to yield a few final touches of genuine cleverness, along with some genuinely engaging spectacle. Examples: the conceit of multiple Jack Sparrows in that Davey Jones' locker thing is a nice tip of the hat to Depp's ability as an actor to project multiple ideas of himself -- as an actor and as the character he's playing -- simultaneously. The upside-down horizon sequence where the ship keels over is another splendid touch. The final ship battle in the maelstrom registers a correctly operatic tone without capsizing all coherence (the score helps), and more impressive in its bombast is the final destruction of the Lord Cuttler character and his vessel.
So, at least there's nothing here that's as downright dull as the Wachowski brothers' subterranean Zion, yet none of it's as much fun as the Looney Tunes-ish water wheel scene in the previous film. And where this picture fails it plummets. It is just way, way too long. Yes, even by its predecessors' standards. The confusing double-crosses and hidden agendas of the characters, while intentionally contrived so that we might feel compelled to sit through these movies again and hope to make more sense of it all, do not hold up to the irrefutable fact that the characters and episodes are too dull for a future investiture of one's time to be considered. Yo-ho-ho, and for the love of giant sea goddesses, just bottle it up already!
Blake's rating: 2 (out of 4)