Three Third Movies: Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End

The impromptu Three Third Movies series continues with my take on the third Pirates Of The Caribbean film At World's End.

I think one of the reasons why so many people enjoyed the POTC films is because their expectations were low. I know I didn't know what to expect when I saw Curse Of The Black Pearl and that made the movie so much better. Then, knowing that sequels can suck, I tempered my expectations for Dead Man's Chest and enjoyed that. I did the same thing for At World's End. I didn't even read spoilers and I usually read them for just about every movie.

Fortunately, At World's End turned out to be a good movie. I enjoyed this movie quite a bit and any movie that can make me almost forget that I've been in a movie theater for nearly three hours is good in my book.

All the principals came back this time around, and it's great to see them. Johnny Depp continues his nutty brilliance as Captain Jack Sparrow and gets to show it off even further in this movie. An early scene featuring many versions of Jack interacting (sort of like the “Malkovich Malkovich” scene of Being John Malkovich) is hilarious. I also enjoyed the rest of the cast. However, I was really glad to see Geoffrey Rush back as Captain Barbosa. If Jack Sparrow is a strange sort of pirate, then Barbosa is your traditional pirate with a hint of crazy. You can tell Rush is having a blast playing this role and I enjoyed him so much that I wanted to see more of him.

Much has been said about this movie's labyrinthine plot. Frankly, I didn't think it was all that bad. It's easy enough to follow in the theater (although I lost track of it once) even if you can't exactly describe it after the movie is over. Considering that many summer movies are shallow plotwise, we should probably be happy that there is one out there that actually makes us think and pay attention while we have fun.

If I had to compare At World's End to Dead Man's Chest, I'd say that At World's End narrowly beats out Dead Man's Chest. Dead Man's Chest has more creative action sequences (the sword fight in the wheel, the escape from the natives) but At World's End has more energy and more emotion. There were times where Dead Man's Chest felt a little sluggish while most of At World's End has a nice, brisk pace to it.

Curse Of The Black Pearl > At World's End > Dead Man's Chest