The Trilogy Curse Strikes Again

Rating: 6/10 (2 June 2007)

This is yet another summer blockbuster gone Hollywood awry by being a bloated, self-indulging "more is better" behemoth. The series is based on my favorite Disney amusement park ride of the same name. By this point I was surprised that the end product has been this tolerable, considering the sword of Damocles hanging precociously over the entire series. At World's End was the piece-of-eight in my beer that overflows the glass.
The story takes over from the end of Dead Man's Chest: Davy Jones' Kraken kills Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann are in couple's limbo, Captain Barbossa returns from the dead and newcomer Lord Cutler Beckett is attempting to do away with all pirates. If you thought the second movie was confusing and went nowhere, then you will be right at home here. Where the second movie contrasted the unevenly paced and somewhat dull movements of the first movie by going over the top(and campy) with the plot, action and characterizations, the third movie tries to outdo the second movie through sheer bulk.
Up to this point the saving grace of the series is Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). This movie ultimately dumps him into a secondary backup role in favor of promoting Barbossa, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann (who continue their pouting, emotionless whining as primary backups to Rush's pirate babbling). Davy Jones, who once was good character, has now been reduced to a lackey. Chow Yun Fat seems to be doing his best impersonation of Vincent Price or Chistopher Lee, by starring in useless cameo roles. Maybe for his next English language movie, he can add to his contract that his character must at least live into the second half of the movie. The character of Calypso is a complete waste of time as that story arc sinks to the bottom of the ocean (literally). There is a nice cameo of Keith Richards playing Sparrow's pirate father, that comes across more like the king of the gypsies than a pirate captain and ultimately is useless and fluff. The characters of Pintel, Ragetti, Mr. Gibbs, Cotton and Marty round out the supporting pirate cast and provide a nice array of comic moments. That's they're role after all and they do it pretty well.
The continuation and proliferation of a plot based on backstabbing the back stab, with a back stab and double-dealing double deals, just had me not caring. It had gotten a bit ridiculous before and it is even worse now. In this movie, I just didn't know why people were doing things except that it was in the script. This is a major problem with story telling these days. Instead of writing a compelling story that you can experience over and over, writers instead option out for ridiculously convoluted stories with improbably plot points that stretch out over long periods of time without saying anything (or when it does say something it is horribly simplistic or enigmatic to the point of confusion).
You are probably asking what is left. There is some action, though not a much as you would think and spread unevenly. The start of the movie has very little action, but it eventually gets to it. It is much more satisfying than Spider-Man 3 (which isn't saying much), but at times it doesn't know when to stop. The final action sequence (what Fleet Week should be every year) is a perfect example of too much, including the most ridiculously cheesy pirate wedding in the middle of a battle while falling into a vortex in the middle of the ocean. I kid you not.
Ultimately, this movie seemed to be lacking enough of Jack Sparrow. When he is on screen he is no longer the cunning rascal and is quite predictable. It was interesting to see Johnny do his best Being John Malkovich impersonation, however, his character was amusing at best. Whether Johnny, the script,the director or sheer over-use of the character is to blame, what is true is that Jack Sparrow needs to sail into the sunset on his dingy.
This slack is picked up by the man who single-handedly made Peter Sellers an uninteresting bore. He is the constant of the movie. Now who wants to see the dead-pan and unfunny pirate rantings of Geoffrey Rush over the course of two hours and forty minutes? I sure don't. By the end, I was wishing Barbossa would have had his head hacked off or at the very least got shot in mouth.
You maybe thinking this is a little graphic, but it is in the spirit of the movie. This is probably one of the most graphically violent movies I have seen from Disney (so far?), and without a doubt the most violent in the series. The opening scene is a grime gallows, where men, women and children are being hung. This segues into a musical number reminiscent of Pink Floyd's the Wall and I was on the floor laughing. Unfortunately, I was the only one in the theater to do so.
There is a political message there, but it is superficial and confused at best (dark times/dark empire/current events). Much as Leonidas' freedom speech had me laughing during 300, so did Elizabeth Swann's pirate freedom . It would be the equivalent of writing a speech about human rights and making Joseph Stalin deliver it. The intentionally funny moments are mostly tepid and everyone involved seems somewhat over the subject. The apathy is not as bad as the cast of Spider-Man 3, but it is still present.
The movie predictably wraps up the story and is the best thing that could have happened to the series (namely finish). The editing is atrocious and seems to have been done by recovering alcoholics, locked in a liquor store over a 4 day weekend. The similarities to Return of the Jedi are uncanny. Here's wishing we don't get any prequels.