If treasure ye seek, there be none here

Rating: 3/10 (25 May 2007)

Like its predecessor films, "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" is meant to be, in large part, a comedy. But the only laughs at the press screening (We movie reviewers get to see this early) were afforded in retrospect, when reviewers recalled the plea of the studio that they not reveal details of the plot's twists and resolutions in writing about it.
Reveal 'em? I'd bet a wooden eye that there wasn't anyone in the room who could understand 'em! Unless you watch the first two "Pirates" movies in the hours before you see this one, unless you have a Ph.D. in "Pirates of the Caribbean" studies, you will have no idea what in blazes is going on nor, I reckon, will you give an undead monkey's patootie.
In what's shaping up to be a summer of deflating third-films-in-the-series, "At World's End" is the loudest, dumbest, slowest, least entertaining and most annoying by a very comfortable margin. The second "Pirates" film did quite a bit to erase the good will created by the first. This one makes matters worse, leaving you feeling angry, cheap and suckered -- after the coma lifts and the raging headache subsides, that is.
Director Gore Verbinski and a team of writers who should wear masks when picking up their checks have turned their serendipitous blend of comedy and action into a grotesque special effects franchise laden with jokes that were already tired when the first film dragged to its conclusion. They have let the tail grow so big that it not only wags the dog but dashes its brains out against a mast.
The ineptitude of "At World's End" is evinced in its hoohah about the goddess Calypso, the mythological sea nymph who, here, has been trapped in human form by a cabal of pirates. For reasons too complex to explain (wouldn't want to spoil those precious plot twists!), she is released from her fleshy bonds, morphs with unintentional hilarity into a giantess and . . . disappears from the film without rhyme, reason, explanation or purpose. A good 15 minutes has been spent fussing about nothing. Add 21/2 hours to that and you pretty much sum up the whole ordeal.
For the record, a crew led by Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) sets off to free Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from Davy Jones' Locker, a spectral underworld comically filled with multiple Captain Jacks, so that he can join a council of pirate bigwigs assembling against the British; Jones himself (Bill Nighy) is in the thrall of the evil capitalist Beckett (Tom Hollander), who controls his heart and thus his invincible ship; Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) struggles to free his dad, Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), from Jones' crew; and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) pursues both Will and Captain Jack, unsure whom she truly loves.
Throw in several more plot lines, a few new characters, the icky romance of moony Bloom and knock-kneed Knightley, lots of computerized fighting and sailing, and painfully tiresome comic relief involving Mackenzie Crook and Lee Arenberg, and it amounts to nearly three hours of slow misery, none of which rises to the level of a "surprise" or "twist" that can be spoiled for anyone.
Grudging credit is due to some of the special effects and, especially, to Keith Richards, the only one among all this prattling mob who knows that less is more. Of course, he's granted a mere 90 seconds of screen time before the film succumbs once again to its congenital pointlessness. The pang of regret you feel at his departure is the sole emotion this mess ever manages to stir.