PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: AT WORLD'S END

Director: Gore Verbinski (The Mexican, The Weatherman, The Pirates 1&2)
Starring: John Depp, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom

I believe it was in my review of Pirates 2 that I spent some time talking about the standard formula for blockbuster sequels. Hollywood currently believes that the cineplex crowd wants bigger, bigger, bigger in their sequels, and Jerry Bruckheimer (uber-producer of the Pirates franchise) is the most "Hollywood" of the Hollywood producers. He wallows in bigger. He loves nothing more than bright lights, big explosions, loud bangs. Pirates 3 is even brighter, even bigger, even louder than before. Damn.

Let's take a look at the Pirates franchise to see if it's suffering from sequelitis, shall we? First, the characters: Are these characters that we grew to love from the first film bigger, broader, more 'important' now? Let's take Keira Knightly, shall we? In the first very good movie she was the daughter of a colonial governer, in love with a boy, almost believeable as a person. Now she's an action star, master swordswomen, and literally the "King of the Pirates" Johnny Depp goes from loveable loser pirate, to one of the 9 'Pirate Lords' of the whole world! Wow, quite a promotion.

How about the plot? Is the plot more "all-encompassing" this time around? Well, in the first great movie, we have a search for cursed gold, some ghosts and a couple in love. There was mystery in the unexplored world of Pirates and magic. It's small, rousing, and wonderful. This time around we have the gods of the sea, pirate kings, stunts only super-heros could perform. Oh and there's also para-sailing. No crap. Para-sailing. In the climax, they save themselves from a giant maelstrom created by the goddess of the sea by para-sailing. It's idiotic.

I won't bother too much with the plot of this film. It's generally gotten a bad rap for being convuluted and confusing, and it absolutely is both, but for my money I don't care nearly so much about it's complexity as I do about its absurdity. It's very much a bigger plot, but it's nowhere near to a better one. If you care, it involves getting Johnny Depp back from death, a 100 foot tall sea goddesses trapped in the body of a mortal, and a giant (and bad) action sequence to end it all.

For all of my complaining, though, I must admit that it's not a total failure as a movie, just a nauseatingly average one. Johnny Depp is still interesting, although he has a smaller role in this film. The wonder of the original Pirates world, a magical version of 17th century colonialism, still shows up now and again, although it's mostly very overdone here. The story is marginally interesting, just not good. The action is vaguely rousing, but so overdone as to be annoying. The film has a lot of problems. It's been fairly poorly reviewed. It will also make a lot of money. The producers will say that that's what matters (public acceptance). I may have heard this all before ...

Standouts: Not much. Big, crappy sequel.
Blowouts: Overdone plot, characters, action, special effects. Oh, and para-sailing.

Grade: C-