At World’s End
Posted by
tgirsch
No, this isn’t another post about the mess W has gotten us into. It’s a movie review. This weekend, I went and saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. The spoiler-free Reader’s Digest version? It was better than I expected (based on reviews, I had very low expectations), but not nearly as good as I’d hoped. Put simply, it was an incoherent mess, too dark, and too light on the fun. What made the first movie so good, after all, was that it was so much fun. That’s almost completely gone from the third installment. And if you’ve got kids under about 10 or 12, you’d probably be better off leaving them at home.
Oh, and if you do go, as with Dead Man’s Chest, be sure to stay all the way to the end of the credits, for a little lagniappe.
More detailed review with mild spoilers follows below the fold.
If you go see the movie, it won’t take you very long to realize just exactly what it is you’re getting into. Within the first two minutes, and before the opening credits roll, some two dozen people are executed, including a young boy (thankfully not graphically). That essentially sets the tone for the mood of the film, which is dark most of the way through.
The plot of At World’s End revolves around the pirates (in these films, “the good guys”) trying to unify against the British, ever more strongly influenced by the East India Trading Company, and whose influence has grown to outright tyranny, now that Davy Jones is in their control. There is to be a gathering of the nine “Pirate Lords” to decide on a course of action, and to possibly make a last stand. There’s also some debate about whether they should release the sea goddess Calypso, whom they’ve bound in human form, to counter the power of Davy Jones.
One of those Pirate Lords is Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), and another is Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), and this is part of why Barbossa agrees to help rescue Sparrow — also because Sparrow is needed to release Calypso, an action which Barbossa has ulterior motives for supporting. As the mission to rescue Sparrow moves forward, it becomes clear that everyone has competing ulterior motives, and that pretty much everyone will screw everyone else to achieve their own private agenda. Sounds confusing and thin? That’s because it is.
As for Sparrow himself, he doesn’t even appear until fifteen or twenty minutes in, and even then, he spends his initial screen time as an over-glorified clown, a shadow of the complicated character they built in the previous two films. Of course, despite the lack of good material, Depp chews up the scenery as only a gifted actor can. And, in fact, the solid acting of people like Depp, Rush, and Knightly are the only thing keeping this film from being a total disaster. Even eye-candy Orlando Bloom manages to pull off something vaguely resembling “acting,” even though he isn’t given much to work with, either, and has never shown the capability before.
When Dead Man’s Chest was released last summer, it made the mistake of substituting slapstick buffoonery for the true fun of the first film, and At World’s End continues further down this path. But the buffoonery, in this case, feels even more out of place than in the middle film, contrasted as it is against the dark story line. It’s as if “fun” scenes are simply slapped in, out of context or place, to keep the darkness of the story from overwhelming the picture. Even Keith Richards’ much-ballyhooed cameo falls a little flat, feeling forced and out of place, with really only one good laugh in the mix.
By the end, several of characters you’ve come to know and care about in the series are killed, often for no good reason. Characters whose comeuppance you’ve come to look forward to will ultimately get it, but not in satisfying ways, certainly not after all the build-up. And if you’re looking for anything like a Hollywood happy ending, you’re not going to find it here. But, as has become commonplace in franchise films these days, they leave the door wide open for yet another sequel. If this downward trend is to continue, here’s hoping they don’t make another one.
But for all the negatives about At World’s End, and for all its failure to live up to its hype or to the previous two films, I still must admit that I didn’t hate it, and at no time did I feel like I was sitting in a theater for nearly three hours, even though I was. Everything else aside, it did manage to exceed my expectations, such as they were. Weighing all that together, I’d give Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End a tepid C+, a grade that would have been lower if not for my low expectations.
