A great movie with a bad downfall

Rating: 7/10 (3 February 2007)

Although this is a great movie and one of my favorites of 2007, I cannot help but feel that something from the first "Pirates" was missing. So I sat down and tried to put a finger on exactly what it was that left me longing for more from this movie.
At first, I was thinking it was just the length. The movie was long with no solid conclusion, so that makes for immediate second thoughts both by critics and movie goers alike. But really, that just wasn't it. So I focused back on the first movie, and looked at exactly what it was that made the world fall in love with it back in 06'. I considering that It may have just been that the whole idea of a crew of sea creature "pirates" with a squid-faced captain and a giant-squid hit-man just wasn't the plot viewers were looking for. Not satisfied with that, I accepted the storyline as it was and moved on. After a few months of watching the two movies again and again, I think I have found out what elements are missing.
"I think he's telling the truth. If he was telling the truth, he wouldn't have told us! That is, unless he knew you wouldn't believe the truth, even if he told it to you." This example from "Curse of the Black Pearl" between Johnny Depp's character and two Royal Guardsmen is a prime example of a well thought out, cleverly written script. The humor didn't rely on crude jokes or silly antics. The sheer cleverness of the plot itself kept the viewer interested from start to finish regardless of the shows length.
For me, I could kind of tell that the production of this was rushed. My thoughts only proved when I watched the bonus features on the DVD and realized they hadn't even finished the script as they headed out to film. I also felt that the over the top impossible action took away from the classic Pirates feel of #1. The rolling seqences with the waterwheel and the bone-cage turned me off a bit due to the sheer fact that there is no way that would happen that way. I have a feeling that Will and Mr. Norrington would be a little more then dizzy after a ride like that.
My last point to touch on here is the lack of immersive settings. I felt that Tia Dalma's shack and Tortuga were done very well, but compared to sets such as Port Royal, the original Tortuga, and the Isla de Muerta from the first movie, the ocean shots that made up a good half of "Dead Mans Chest" were plain and didn't really give me that immursive feeling I wanted from the sequel.
In conclustion, despite my tone in this summery, I really did love this movie and I could have written an entry twice this long on the movies pro's. But instead, I wrote this entry with the hope that "At Worlds End" will bring us back to that wonderful world of "Pirates of the Caribbean"