Pirate Lords, Goddesses, and Monsters
Pirates Travels Beyond Imagination

Finishing a promising film trilogy is not easy. A few years ago, when The Lord of the Rings trilogy ended, I sat through an all-day marathon to commemorate the event. It was worth every minute! When Spider-Man 3 debuted this month, I made sure to see all the action in IMAX, but felt overwhelmed by the multiple storylines. Seeing Shrek the Third was a bit of a comedic let down. With the third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean story (titled, appropriately, At World's End), I found myself neither saddened nor excited, only hopeful that it would live up to expectations.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush, left), Elizabeth (Keira Knightley), and Capt. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) parlay with the enemy in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. (Disney, 2007)
Directed by: Gore Verbinski
Written by: Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio
Starring: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Naomie Harris, Chow Yun-Fat, Lee Arenberg, and Mackenzie Crook

Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of action/adventure violence and some frightening images)
Running time: 168 min.

FilmGuru's Rating : 9 out of 10.

The final installment of the trilogy begins with a haunting song of warning. As pirates and co-conspirators alike are hanged by Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) for their crimes, the victims sing a call-to-arms alerting the pirate lords.

Meanwhile, the search for Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). At the end of the previous film he had been taken to Davy Jones's locker by The Kraken. Under the command of the recently resurrected Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), the remaining crew of the Black Pearl must forge an alliance with Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat), the Pirate Lord of Singapore. He alone has a map to Davy Jones's locker at the end of the world.

The beginning of the film is a bit hard to follow. The story is made maddening by a number of backroom deals that are made for various reasons. Betrayal is followed by betrayal as Will (Orlando Bloom), for instance, offers to trade Jack to Feng in exchange for the Black Pearl. Once Jack is returned to the land of the living, he too barters for position while fighting Barbossa for control of his ship. Jack trades Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) to Feng for the Black Pearl, after Feng double-crossed Will and kept the Pearl for himself.

The film is packed with action, humor, and amazing special effects. Even though the battle scenes occasionally border on silly (because of the pure luck that seems to surround Jack), this is swashbuckling adventure of the highest caliber. My only wish would have been that the producers had not tried to cram so much into one film. I felt as if the story would have been better served if it had been spaced out over two films. For instance, the plot regarding Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) and her connection to Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) seemed like a side note.

More importantly, the release of Calypso (a goddess of the sea trapped in human form) seems to do little more than cause a storm and a giant whirlpool. I must say that I expected more from Disney on this front. I expected to see Calypso as the embodiment of fury, with the her becoming the storm personified. I expected to see her face in the stormy clouds, blowing the ships about, her hands as waves crashing against the decks. Maybe they ran short on their special effects budget. Heaven knows they wasted enough on the prolonged slow-motion destruction of Beckett's ship, The Endeavor.

There are some inexplicably coincidental plot twists that drive the story forward without making a lot of sense. Most noteworthy of these are the domino-like events that lead to Elizabeth becoming a Pirate Lord, followed by her appointment as Pirate King. While it follows a certain logic, it also falls pretty neatly in place (as do many crazy plots and schemes within the film).

The majority of the plot twists that transpire are expected, and a bit predictable. However, this is only because this tale of adventure had to end in a certain way and some story elements were necessary for the film to reach its logical conclusion. While this is definitely the end of Will and Elizabeth's story, I doubt it is the last that moviegoers will see of Capt. Jack Sparrow.

Fans who skip out before the end of the film credits will be doing themselves a disservice. Stick around to see the end of the story (or perhaps it would rightly be called the beginning of another story).