Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
About halfway through Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, someone comments that Captain Jack Sparrow is making it up as he goes along. That is exactly what the filmmakers did, since director Gore Verbinski rolled the cameras on this movie before the screenplay was even finished.
And boy does it show. As far as I’m concerned, the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels have taken over from the Matrix sequels as the most ludicrously overrated summer blockbuster franchise in recent memory. To be fair, the original picture was an enjoyable adventure romp with a plot that didn’t bear close scrutiny. Actually it didn’t bear any scrutiny, but its trump card was the character of Jack Sparrow and his highly amusing Keith Richards impersonation. Even though the joke wore thin in its overlong running time, it was sufficiently engaging to be remembered as an above average silly season flick.
But when its first sequel, Dead Man’s Chest, took a woefully misguided “Empire Strikes Back” approach, things got very bad very quickly, culminating in this truly dire third instalment. Picking up from the ludicrous events of its predecessor (Bambosa’s resurrection is just one of many story threads which have deeply unsatisfying explanations) the nonsensical plot doesn’t really have a chance. Maddening and unnecessarily complicated to the point of insanity, one gives up following it almost immediately. There’s a map that leads to the land of the dead where Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann et al try to rescue Jack. Then there’s some gobbledegook about the pirates captains of the world uniting against the East India Trading Company led by Lord Beckett, who now has that Davy Jones bloke with the tentacles working for him. Oh, and something about a weirdo voodoo priestess who turns out to be a sea god. These plot threads all culminate in a big sea battle where loads of ships face off against one another but only two actually fight.
Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightly, Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp all reprise their roles to competent if pointless effect. New characters come and go without much rhyme or reason (a wasted Chow Yun Fat as Captain Sao Feng for instance), and the old characters are too busy disentangling themselves from endless double, triple and quadruple crosses to engage the audience. It obviously goes without saying that the special effects are spectacular, and in fairness, Verbinski stages the set pieces with a modicum of flair, especially in the final battle. But such positives dwindle into insignificance in the face of a deeply and profoundly rubbish script. When I consider that this bloated, overblown monstrosity of a film probably cost the same as the national debt of a small Latin American country, something is definitely wrong if the best thing in it is a brief gag involving a telescope. The studio executives who green-lit this picture without a finished screenplay should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
I had hoped the third instalment of this monumentally tedious franchise would be the last, but it is my sad duty to report that after three hours of interminable drivel, things are left very much open for additional sequels (especially in a post credits sequence, if you can be bothered to sit through them). However, since the great unwashed continue to flock in droves to see Jack Sparrow et al, such ongoing sequels are, alas, inevitable.
Simon Dillon, May 2007.
I concure heaaaaaartily, aaar! I still haven’t seen the last Matrix film and I don’t intend to see this either. I liked the first one but was fatally enraged by the way Orlando Bloom effectively murders a whole boatful of innocent sailors in the second one and because he’s Orlando Bloom and his character’s story is more important than their lives, we should overlook this. Well not I, sirs! Then my irritation was compounded by them bringing back Geoffrey Rush, at which point I realised the whole franchise has the narrative integrity of Van Helsing. “You’ve completely undermined any vestiges of dramatic tension that remained, you idiots!” I wanted to shout at the screen. “Why should I care about any of the characters any more now that I know that nothing that happens has any consequences whatsoever?” I did not, because a) I still wouldn’t have got my money back and b) The majority of the people in the cinema only spoke Chinese and would have thought I was a weird foreigner ranting rather than one making a considered and rational (if animated) series of points. But I did moan about it all the way home, I assure you.
Comment by Charlie Storrar — 31 May, 2007 @ 11:36 am
Best film EVA!!!!!!!! (5 stars) can’t wait for the DVD release.
Comment by Neil Tennant — 12 June, 2007 @ 3:29 pm
I get the distinct impression that “Neil Tennant” is being sarcastic…
Comment by Simon — 14 June, 2007 @ 8:01 am
Being sarcastic and smoking is cool.
Comment by The Brewer — 26 July, 2007 @ 12:26 pm
I must say I was tempted to take up smoking on the 1st of July, purely on principle.
Comment by Simon — 26 July, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
MY GOD…..Tell me Neil Tennant was joking.
Comment by Christian — 18 February, 2008 @ 7:06 pm