Expectations can be everything. Nobody thought much of Jerry Bruckheimer’s plan to turn a creaky Disneyland ride into a feature film – not least the studio suits, who panicked at the sight of a camp Johnny Depp mincing his way through the early rushes – so when Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl surfaced as one of the box-office juggernauts of 2003, it took everyone by surprise.
Disney’s response to the movie’s success was to torpedo the audience with more in last year’s first of two sequels, Dead Man’s Chest – more characters, more plots, more running time, resulting in even more monstrous theatrical grosses – only, and we know we’re walking the plank in suggesting it, much less in the way of fun. Dead Man’s Chest was festooned with impressive set pieces but it missed the lighter comic touch, instead tangling itself up in convoluted plot rigging and greedily leaving its audience, with wallets agape, on a routine cliffhanger.And so we arrive At World’s End only half-drunk on cheap rum and with a jaded eye on the horizon. Will it recapture the verve of the original and bring the story to a rousing finale? The good news is that the answer is “aye”. Despite the off-the-map running time (168 minutes) it’s got more drive and character smarts than it’s predecessor, clearly benefitting from the compulsion to wrap up the story.
The bad news is that the improvements aren’t enough to put it in the league of the first film – it’s cut from the same rag as part two, and the sense of overload that plagued Dead Man’s Chest applies. Black Pearl was refreshing because it had its tongue firmly planted in its ruddy cheek – a swashbuckling comedy-adventure showcasing the unlikeliest left-of-field leading man turn in a summer blockbuster. Burdened with the weight of a box-office that suggested it all turn epic, both Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End have gotten bigger and more ponderous, sidelining the flightier comic moments in favour of effects spectacles and labyrinthine plots that require whole half hours and scores of characters devoted to their exposition.At World’s End sets sail as an entertaining rescue mission, as our heroes – led by the never-feistier Knightley – hook up with Chow Yun-Fat’s Oriental-for-hire Sao Feng, escape a deadly attack from those stuffy British villains, and make off into the land of the dead.
There we find Jack Sparrow comically adrift in both Jones’ purgatory and his own cracked mind – a surreal, Gilliam-esque detour with multiple Depps acting out Being Jack Sparrow – and the crew reunites in a quest to bring the nine pirate heads together for a showdown with their rivals. The return of Rush’s Barbossa – and his film-stealing monkey – is a huge boost to the ensemble, his theatrical flourishes bringing the comic relish back and again playing wonderfully off Depp.
Then the fits of unwieldy exposition begin, with double crosses and treacheries you’ll need ye olde parchment to keep track of – as Orlando Bloom confessed to US mag EW recently: “Someone asked me, ‘So tell us about your character’s arc in the third movie.’ I said, ‘Dude, the writers can’t even explain the third movie.’’’And that’s what keeps At World’s End from returning to the pure, giddy ride of the first instalment. The movie strains under its many plots, while arguably failing to come up with a set piece as inspired as Dead Man’s Chest’s wheel-of-death. Again this marginalises Depp to make way for other players, some of whom, like Sao Feng, are great, while others, like Tia Dalma’s mythical metamorphasis into sea-goddess Calypso, fall short of their potential.Not that any of that should bother most fans. To find fault in this review-proof behemoth is redundant; it'll have broken countless box-office records before this paragraph is even over. And in the end, At World’s End is overflowing with enough pleasures to keep everyone amused, with the protracted action climax, in particular, finally making us care for the characters again – though whether we can endure another three films, as the ending all but threatens, is another matter entirely. Director Verbinski even stages what passes for popcorn political comment, as his recognisably multi-ethnic pirate heroes gallantly defy their white corporate oppressors. If only more moviegoers were capable of mounting similar resistance.
Verdict:Better than part two and occasionally rising to the spirit of the original, it’s an entertaining spectacle that brings the story to satisfying conclusion – but it’s still too long and overloaded, at the expense of the comedy.
