The Dim-Witted Ghost Of Davey Jones’ Locker-Johnny Depp’s “Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End” (2007)-A Film Review    

DVD Review

By Associate Film Critic Alden Riley

[As regular readers of this space now are probably painfully aware when Sam Lowell the longtime film critic here retired from the day to day grind of reviewing films, old and young, his old-time friend and competitor from American Film Gazette days Sandy Salmon took over the chores. Sandy himself is in the process of retiring at some point in the near distant future and thus he hired me, Alden Riley, to do some of the leg work with the idea of me taking his place when the time comes for him hang up his hat. Apparently until then I am to take every deadbeat film, every stinker to put the matter more succinctly, like the film below that Sandy doesn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Okay Sandy but my day will come.]               

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightly, 2007  

Sometimes Hollywood goes too far with a good thing. Tries to squeeze more than that last ounce out of one of its productions, one of its ideas that cannot sustain a battering in sequel land. Not always as the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogies testify to in a big way. Going the other way the prequel to the original Star Wars and The Hobbit trilogies and the film under review here the third installment of the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy, or what was then billed as a trilogy,  At World’s End lacked reason to go the trifecta distance. (Needless to say films four and five of the series suffer exponentially from that same overdone malaise but they will be reviewed at another time). Despite my love for Johnny Depp in almost everything he has done on screen since Edward Scissorhand, my secret crush on Kiera Knightly and admiration of the work of the dashing Orlando Bloom this one gets a decided thumbs down notwithstanding that at the time it made Disney a bazillion dollars.      

The sinner is the plotline mostly, mostly confusing, and not well thought out once the managerial decision was made to go for broke with a third film. The “late” Captain Jack Sparrow, Depp’s role, long gone to Mister David Jones’ locker, long gone beyond the pale to pirate heaven (or hell is maybe more like it) is in need of resurrection. In need of taking human form again since his services are needed to keep the pirate community from extinction at the hands of the military commander of the dastardly British East India Company which is ready to do major hell-raising with the resources of the sub-continent of India. Dear Jack is needed to show up at an appointed place, Shipwreck Cove, where a great decision needs to be made by the pirate kings, the live pirate kings  in high dungeon Brethren Court about how to fight to the death against the East India commander at the behest of those pirates who faced their last before the hangman’s noose.

Needless to say an uneasy alliance between the fetching even for a pirate leader Ms. Elizabeth Swann, Knightly’s role, Will Turner, Bloom’s role, and the nefarious Captain Barbossa needs to be consummated all with their own agendas else we would have a very short but maybe mercifully short film (at two and one half hours with a thin plotline a length a legitimate criticism). Needless to say as well they spring Jack and then the serious swashbuckling begins as alliances are made and unmade, treachery abounds, and yesterday’s allies can turn sullen on a dime. Through all of this Liz and Will are making very serious eyes at each other (they will be wedded by Captain Barbossa, a questionable legal choice under the circumstances, while beating off, no swashbuckling their way out on yet another set of problems.) Oh yeah, through some bizarre machinations (and a bid to seem democratic and pro-women to modern sensibilities) Liz is made the “king” of the pirates. That will not stop them from being parted for ten years while Will is the middleman in the passage from life business. No problem as they have sex and Liz gets pregnant out of that encounter, very pregnant. Ho hum. Thankfully this is the last of the muddled adventure series.  Not