REVIEW: Pirates of the Carribean - At World's End

When PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL came out in 2003, no one thought that it would last one week at the box-office, let alone gross nearly 700 million dollars worldwide. Especially a cornball pop-corn action flick based on a theme park ride at Disneyland. Who could have guessed that it would soon become a phenomenon that would spawn a franchise of films, loads of merchandise, video games, and action figures? But what made our first visit to the Caribbean so enthralling was the whimsical, almost Charlie Chaplin meets slapstick western, nature of it. It had everything that an audience wanted out of a summer blockbuster: cursed pirates, high sea battles, sword fights, large set pieces, witty writing, and the foundation that held it all together, the creation of Captain Jack Sparrow played in every sense with freshness an energy by Johnny Depp. Depp brought so much to the role as to make Sparrow clearly one of the most original film characters since Indian Jones, or Han Solo, and it even earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. In PIRATES, Sparrow is a total scoundrel, but we love him anyway because underneath all of his selfishness and egoism's, he struggles to make the right decisions, and in the end he does so by helping to thwart the plans of Captain Barbossa, but never without a sense of outlandish flair. What PIRATES created was a sense of newness to high-seas adventures after a string of box-office blunders (CUTTHROAT ISLAND, WATERWORLD), and as soon as Disney saw the dollars roll in, they ordered-up two more installments to be filmed back-to-back. It was a move ala THE MATRIX trilogy of sorts, though even THE MATRIX films got the idea from the first trilogy to use this method - BACK TO THE FUTURE.

In PIRATES 2, we find ourselves surrounded again by a world of slapstick silliness, hungry cannibals, outlandish battles with a giant sea monster, more cursed pirates lead by the tyrannical and squid-faced Davy Jones, and at the core, Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp continues to ignite his performance in this installment with enough eccentric showmanship that we marvel at his ability to make meandering about as a drunken dimwit look easy, and showing just how much fun he has at playing this role. PIRATES 2 takes on a quite a darker tone than its predecessor, and the plot starts to get quite vexing and complicated, but it still remains a fantastical romp of a film from beginning to end. After all, it is a movie based on a theme part ride, can you really expect much more? The biggest fault in PIRATES 2 is that it leaves things completely open ended: Sparrow sacrifices himself to the Kraken, in which he is plunged into the metaphysical pirate purgatory known as "Davy Jones Locker"; Will Turner rallies to save his father Bootstrap-Bill Turner from his life debt to Davy Jones; Colonel Beckett, now possessing the heart of Jones as well as Jones's allegiance, wants to rid the world of pirates altogether; Elizabeth Swan wants to somehow make sense of everything that's going on, even after sentencing Sparrow to his fate; and in the end, Turner, Swan, and Sparrow's faithful shipmates set out on a voyage to save Sparrow from pirate hell, but not without the help of the recently resurrected Captain Barbosa.

And that leads us to PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END...

If you thought it was hard keeping track of all the plot lines, last minute betrayals, and twists of PIRATES 2, then you are in for an even greater treat with the latest installment of the franchise, which shows no signs of slowly down the production of future installments. That fact became almost certain when PIRATES 3 broke the worldwide opening weekend record with an estimated box-office gross of nearly $400 million, an impressive achievement. But there is only one way to truly describe PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END: an overstuffed turkey on the brink of bursting. For all its meandering, absurdities, and fatty excess, it remains no more than a pile of action sequences sewn together by unintelligible dialogue, cardboard characters, and a plot so absurd that it makes Terry Gilliam's THE BROTHER'S GRIMM a harrowing achievement of substance, heart, and meaning. The only meaning that I got out of PIRATES 3, with its constant tendency for characters to betray each other, lie, cheat, back stab, and steal, was how glorious it must have been to be a pirate, and to get away with such self-less behavior. The films tendency is to almost glamorize the act of piracy by painting a somewhat tyrannical picture of the British soldiers, and showing little sense of morality or conscience within the bub of main characters, who are suppose to represent heroism, but instead represent that which they have become, bumbling idiots. Hardly a moment passes by where characters actually have any type of moral dilemma about what they are doing, and why. They purely act out of their own self-righteous and self-loathing ideals from beginning to end, flaunting their prideful attitudes.

Another major issue I had with PIRATES 3, was its complete departure from the energy and liveliness of the first two films. Gone is the whimsical fun of the first films, and in its place is a plot that tends to revel in torment, violence, and making the audience feel utterly depressed. Throughout the whole film, I can hardly remember the moments that I actually laughed, or even smiled. Not only was this film stretched to an abhorrent length of nearly three hours, but it left me physically exhausted, and wanting nothing more than for the credits to role. It quickly lost its sense of entertainment, and became an exercise of pure endurance. The opening scene of the film involves the hanging of a slew of people, all condemned for their connection to piracy. The scene even features a young boy being hanged, his feet shown dangling in mid-air. Before the films end the audience must experience scenes of digits being snapped off, characters being impaled, a brain being licked, what many would consider an attempted rape, and what I would consider the most grotesque image, Davy Jones killing someone by shoving his tentacles down their throat. Where the first two PIRATES films left the violence between our hero's and immortal pirates comic swordplay, the third film takes it to a whole new level by making the it more realistic, more harrowing, and much more brutal.

From a filmmaker standpoint, what Director Gore Verbinski has crafted is a film of impeccable quality. His use of colors, cinematography, costumes, editing, and visual effects are impeccable. I think the only threat to PIRATES 3 winning the Oscar for Best Visual Effects film to be TRANSFORMERS, which has seemed so flawless in all of the previews. Also, the production design is both haunting, beautiful, and unique, most notably for the extreme details placed into the sets featuring Singapore. But in the end, the film remains void of a memorable story, heroic characters, or without the fun and whimsical soul which the first two PIRATES films reflected so masterfully.

GRADE: C-

RECOMMENDATION: Only if you can stomach storytelling on steroids, horrible dialogue, and complete buffoonery.