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Pirates of the Caribbean: At Wart's End

If we are all very, very lucky, this will be the final Pirates of the Caribbean film. At World's End isn't awful, but it tries to be. It tries really, really hard.

Curse of the Black Pearl was a shocker. It was an almost-perfect combination of adventure, romance, horror, and comedy. Johnny Depp earned his Oscar nomination, and IMO should have won. As I wrote previously, CotBP was honest about pirates, especially as embodied by Jeffrey Rush's Barbossa. They were brutal and mean, and if they were occasionally comical it was to give them some redeeming characteristic. This was a high bar to match; neither sequel does.

Dead Man's Chest was a half-hour or more longer than it needed to be and turned its characters into clowns. Nice action sequences, though. AWE tops that. AWE is at least an hour longer than it needs to be and turns all the clowns into idiots, and assumes everyone in the audience is an idiot, too. It has plot convolutions that serve no purpose other than to burn time. Bigger action sequences, though.

The opening sequence, wherein it appears that an entire island is being hung by the gleeful 18th century ancestors of the Third Reich, is laughably insulting. Appalling seems so light a word. Who wrote this crap? Was this a slap at Bush? You listen to some guy monotone the things that Halliburton the East Indies Trading Company has declared "crimes" and you hear the litany of moonbat complaint against BushitlerCo.

Alas, that's wishful thinking because that might indicate some level of intelligence and imagination, both of which are lacking as AWE begins. Or ends, for that matter.

Things get interesting when the film rips off Terry Gilliam, wherein we find Jack Sparrow trapped in Davy Jones' Locker while the others sail to his rescue. Some lines are meant to be funny but actually serve to plug plot holes. For instance, if Tia Dalma can bring Barbossa back to life, why can't she bring Jack back? Answer: "Because Barbossa was merely dead." We then get an exposition on what that means. Sort of.

Depp's rendition of Sparrow tries to get back to where it was for CotBP, making it a bit better than what he did in DMC, but not by much. Bloom makes a convincing argument in favor of my opinion that his best acting was in Black Hawk Down, wherein he introduces himself, suits up, and then has the good grace to fall out of a helicopter and exit the film, stage right, silent and strapped to a stretcher.

While I find Knightly pleasing to the eye, she's becoming unwatchable if there's sound and motion attached. Her speech rallying the pirate lords is probably meant to echo Gibson's similar cry in Braveheart but spare me. These are pirates, for crying out loud. They don't fight for freedom, they fight for the pleasure of cutting your heart out. And her delivery is enough to make one shudder.

(Not that her speech was very convincing. Those brave and vicious pirate lords "Yar!" their agreement, hoist variations of the Jolly Roger...and then sit back and watch others do all the fighting.)

The film cheats and lies its way along. You should already know that the film is driven by the pursuit of Davy Jones' heart. In DMC, you stab the heart and Jones dies. Thus, if you possess the heart you control Jones and, by extension, the sea. In AWE, there's a bonus fate awaiting the man who welds the blade. It's perfectly natural that this should have been mentioned before, and that there's someone else who really controls the sea might have been mentioned, too. These inconsistencies are inexcusable given that Pirates 2 and Pirates 3 are actually the first half and second half of one loooong story. The film's writers act as though no one will notice.

Is there anything worthwhile in the film? Yes. I thought Rush was a hidden delight in CotBP, his Barbossa more than a match for Depp's Sparrow. He tones down the viciousness here, but he chews the scenery with such gleeful abandon it's a joy to behold. Bill Nighy as David Jones still rocks; horrifying and sympathetic at the same time. Naomie Harris is neat as Tia Dalma, even though she's given the thankless job of attempting to plug plot holes. Then there's Tom Hollander as Dick Cheney Lord Beckett; he exudes menace while never raising his voice above a conversational tone.

You can see every dime of the budget up on the screen. The production designs are excellent and the visuals often invoke a sense of awe that AWE is otherwise lacking. The battle around the maelstrom is simply a stunner, albeit one that goes on way too long. And earlier shot of a waterfall is nothing short of beautiful.

Hans Zimmer's music is an improvement over what he did for DMC. There are some memorable musical moments (alliteration is our friend), some of the best coming during that dreadful opening sequence or that dreadful Knightly speech. Nonetheless, the best music remains the bits that are re-does from CotBP, officially credited to Klaus Badelt; that music will always be remembered.

The problem with both sequels is that nothing in them, and not even in their sum and total, equals that amazing moment in CotBP when we first meet Captain Jack Sparrow, when he steps off his sinking dinghy and onto the dock at Port Royal. That moment has joined the pantheon of screen gems, right up there with "Rosebud", "We're gonna need a bigger boat", and "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse", and did so without a word being spoken. What do we have in AWE? Cuttlefish.

I wanted to like this film, so my disappointment is immense. Now I'm looking forward to robots in disguise. I hated the TV show, but the trailer for the film...wow!

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