Released 3 days and only 5 reviews on MS?? Does this reveal the sad fate of one of the summer’s most awaited blockbuster’s in India? To tell you where I’m coming from (or rather going to), I’m not much of a fan of the pirates series, so this will be a lukewarm review at best.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End begins where the second one left off. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is stuck in Davy Jones’ Locker where the Kraken sent him to and Lord Bennett (Tom Hollander) with the help of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) is wreaking havoc on the pirate population. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) with the help of Tia Dalma (Naomi Harris) set out to enlist the help of Sao Feng (Chow Yun Fat), a pirate lord, who can guide them to the Worlds End and help get Sparrow out. Once, they have him back, they have to gather the remaining pirate captains in a standoff against Bennett and Jones to protect the pirate way of life. In a showdown that involves complicated cross and double-cross we come to an end that seems like a setup for more POTC sequels.
The end of the pirates trilogy, just seems like it’s all more of the same - more Davy Jones and his barnacled buccaneers, more monkey-parrot high-jinks, more sidekicks with 2 British soldiers added to the pair of Ragetti & Pintel, more beautifully detailed pirate ships and more characters and their motives to keep track of. Possibly the only person there is a lot less of is Jack Sparrow and this is a loss that I felt intensely through the movie. Depp is wonderful as usual, however he is more toned down than in the second version and is just one among a varied cast of characters. The person whom I did enjoy seeing more of is Barbossa, Rush is wonderful, inhabiting his role with pirately gusto, he has as many funny lines as Depp and seeing his (comparatively) straight captain play off Depp’s weird one is enjoyable.
Of course, this one also has more romance between Swann and Turner, albeit the sanitized Disney version. Knightley and Bloom continue to underwhelm in their respective roles. Knightley is given a huge chunk of the action scenes to sink her teeth into, and she does this with enough energy to entertain, it’s her comic timing I dont much care for. And Bloom is no Dread Pirate Roberts is he, even the addition of a black bandanna and kohl-rimmed eyes ala Depp’s Sparrow fails to give him that pirately look or authority. Bloom isnt given too much of screen time when compared to the rest, which isnt a major loss for those of us who arent teen girls, although I wonder if my finding him unappealing is just a symptom of increasing age? Shudder. Let’s move on shall we ....
A bit long at over 2 and a half hours, there’s plenty of time when you feel that the pace could have moved a bit faster and a couple of characters (like Chow Yun Fat’s) could have been done away altogether to make for a less complicated movie. Sometimes it gets a little hard keeping track of the character’s, what with each character having different motivations and with each character changing sides a couple of times and more. Possibly the only person with a consistent character arc through all 3 movies has been Swann, though she also seems to be the character who loses the most at the end. But the last hour or so does provide plenty of thrilling pirate action, fantastically coordinated sword-fighting, blunderbuss and cannon explosions for those who were about to doze off in their seats. I must admit I loved the sword fighting, most of the cast and crew seem perfectly comfortable with their stunts and there’s plenty of visually beautiful special effects here to keep you entertained, though not enough to make the more critical forget the first 90 minutes of varying degrees of boredom.
The fate of this summer’s blockbusters doesnt seem terribly good, with Spidey fizzling out, and Shrek 3 and Pirates both being lacklustre, the only preview that really excited me was of Disney and Pixar’s Ratatouille. And this after having sworn off animation over the last year :S Let’s hope this one will be the next Incredibles. As for POTC, it’s an average watch, so if you are not a major fan of the pirates, or dont care much for special effects, watch it on DVD so that you are free to do other stuff in the movie’s long drawn out moments.