Really....Three Hours???

Rating: Null/10 (23 May 2011)

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
** (out of 4)
The third film in the (then) trilogy has Turner, Swann and Captain Barbossa (Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightly, Geoffrey Rush) going to Singapore to steal a ship and crew but are captured and forced to make a deal with Captain Sao Feng (Chow-Yun Fat). The new crew must then rescue Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from the "Land of the Dead" where we then get nearly three-hours of double crossings in order to get the goddess Calypso released. As I made my way through this original trilogy it became quite clear after the first movie that I certainly wasn't seeing what so many others were. I must admit that I'm rather shocked either of the sequels made any money because it's typically hard to get people's attention for such a long period of time and after the previous 151-minute running time the producers decided to go even further and making this third entry just ten-minutes shy of three hours. If you read my thoughts on the first two movies then this here is going to come off as a broken record but for the life of me I can't see why a "B" movie has to clock in at such a running time. I had heard many negative things about this third film but I really found myself enjoying the first hour. I thought all of the characters made a grand entrance and I thought there were some terrific visuals including a rather breath-taking sequence in the ice. Then, sadly, the film decided to throw one plot device after another until the point where the film just comes to a crashing halt and then things are made worse because you realize that you've still got 90-minutes to go. Needless to say I put the full blame of this film on the filmmakers for trying to be so "epic" but failing to remember that it's also important to keep your viewers entertained. I thought the dialogue was all poorly written, the story was all over the map and whenever something interesting would happen the movie would then just take off in another direction. As usual, the performance by Depp is the main reason to watch this thing as he clearly has this role down and could probably play it in his sleep. He's certainly lively enough to help keep the movie going but even a master such as himself can't overcome the various flaws. Bloom once again sleepwalks through his part and Knightly appears bored with the material as well. Rush comes out good once again as does Chow-Yun Fat in his part. Keith Richards makes an appearance and his cameo is certainly one of the highlights in the film but at the same time this too is rather disappointing because it's clear that he and Depp are not doing the scene together but instead editing is being used to cover that up. I'm sure fans of the series will find something more entertaining than I did but for me this entire series has been full of ups and downs. There's no question that there's enough material for a good movie but the producers and filmmakers went overboard and in the end none of the films are worth revisiting.