Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End – 4 stars (Excellent)

What a relief! Like many of my fellow critics, I held my breath after “Dead Man’s Chest” hoping that the third part of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” wouldn’t be stuck on the chest with the disgusting slimy beating heart of Davy Jones.

Three could have gone to waste with the average performance of Priates two, but luckily “At World’s End” gets an excellent rating as the first performance of Pirates “The Curse of the Black Pearl.”

Dead Man’s Chest received mixed reviews nationally, as many critics could not tolerate a plot that was too complicated to follow. Trust me when I say that At World’s End wasn’t any better in that regard, but it was much better as the big storylines came back. Here are a few:

1) Summary of the romance between Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom). Just watching Keira Knightly in her prime can distract you from the troubled story. The relationship between the two was almost destroyed in “Dead Man’s Chest”.

2) Jack is back! The Curse of the Black Pearl had Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) front and center with all the action revolving around him. Dead Man’s Chest dimmed the spotlight on Captain Jack, ultimately “murdering” him at the end. At World’s End brings Captain Jack Sparrow back front and center, where he should be as the focal point of this saga.

Pirates of the Caribbean begins and ends with Jack Sparrow, and if he’s given a minor role, the story suffers.

3) The over-the-top visual gags in Dead Man’s Chest (the giant wheel sword fight that went on too long and the hanging baskets between the cliffs) place too much emphasis on production tricks rather than characters. The people make the story of Pirates, not the tricks.

At World’s End has sword fights aboard a ship and cannons that blow ships to bits, for that matter, this is a pirate story for crying out loud, not a ballet production on a Ferris wheel.

Give someone credit for letting writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio tell the story without marching orders. I think these two writers were forced to pull anything together to meet the immediate demand for a sequel that would fit into another sequel. Gore Verbinski directed all three films.

Given how convoluted the plot is, here’s the best synopsis of J. Curcio’s At World’s End (it certainly helps if you’ve seen the first two Pirate movies):

“After Elizabeth Swann, Will Turner and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) rescue Captain Jack Sparrow from the land of the dead (Davy Jones’ Locker), they must face their enemies, Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander). With control of Jones’ heart, Beckett forms a dark alliance with Davy Jones to rule the seas and wipe out the last remaining Pirates.

“Now Jack, Barbossa, Will, Elizabeth, Tia Delma and the crew must summon Pirate Lords from the four corners of the world to come together and figure out how to free the goddess Calypso, Davy Jones’s ex-lover, so that she can come to his aid. Once Calypso is free, all the Pirate Lords will unite in their fight for freedom against Beckett, Jones, Norrington, Dutch E and the entire East India Trading Company”.

During the battle, Will proposes to Elizabeth, who insists that Barbossa marry them immediately. When Davy Jones mortally wounds Will aboard the Dutchman, Jack places the saber in Will’s hand and helps him stab Davy Jones’s heart into the dead man’s chest, thus killing Jones and making Will the captain of the Flying Dutchman.

The crew remove Will’s heart and place it in the Dead Man’s Chest. Jack and Elizabeth escape before the ship falls into the whirlpool, but it quickly resurfaces with Will at the helm. Will captains the Flying Dutchman and Jack Sparrow captains the Black Pearl as they destroy Lord Cutler Beckett’s ship, killing Beckett and causing his armada to retreat.

Although Will was saved and the Dutch crew restored to his humanity, Will must spend the next 10 years at sea transporting souls to the other world. Will and Elizabeth spend a day together on an island to consummate their marriage, and Will entrusts Elizabeth with the Dead Man’s Chest containing her heart.

The rest is simply too good to give away here. Don’t make the mistake of leaving when the credits start to roll, as there is an extra scene at the end of the credits that is critical to understanding where the movie is heading next.

There are too many secret alliances, backstabbers, betrayals, and self-centered activities to detail in this review. Just look at the action happening so fast that the plot becomes complicated.

In fact, there was a royal council of pirates at one point in history.

The 9 Pirate Lords portrayed in the film are:

Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow: Lord of the Pirates of the Caribbean Sea.

Geoffrey Rush as Hector Barbossa: Pirate Lord of the Caspian Sea.

Chow Yun-Fat as Captain Sao Feng: Pirate Lord of the South China Sea.

Takayo Fischer as Mistress Ching: Pirate Lady of the Pacific Ocean.

Hakim-Kae Kazim as Gentleman Jocard: Pirate Lord of the Atlantic Ocean.

Marcel Iures as Captain Chevalle: Pirate Lord of the Mediterranean Sea.

Ghassan Massoud as Ammand the Corsair: Pirate Lord of the Black Sea.

Marshall Manesh as Sri Sumbhajee: Pirate Lord of the Indian Ocean.

Sergio Calderón as Captain Villanueva: Pirate Lord of the Adriatic Sea.

The set design is truly outstanding in At World’s End; some of the scenes were filmed during the filming of Dead Man’s Chest, so revisiting the locations would not be necessary.

Keith Richards, who had been courted to appear in previous Pirate movies, agreed to appear as Jack Sparrow’s father and keeper of the Pirate Code in At World’s End.

When the Pirate’s Code appears to settle a dispute, Barbossa refers to the code created by “Morgan and Bartholomew”.

This is a reference to the famous pirates Henry Morgan and Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts. Morgan was famous for plundering several impenetrable treasure cities, including Portobello, the Fort Knox of his day.

Black Bart was just brutal without any conscience, he killed and looted at will and was one of the pirates who developed a code of honor that his crew followed on pain of death.

These are my favorite lines from the movie:

Will Turner: No cause is lost if only a fool is left to fight for it.

Barbosa: Dying is the day worth living for.

Barbosa: All men are attracted to the sea, no matter how dangerous it is.

Will Turner (when he gives Elizabeth the Dead Man’s Chest with his beating heart in it): It was always yours. . . Will you keep it safe? (How’s that for a romance line, ladies?)

Cabin Boy: Yo ho, charge together, raise your colors high. Hog Ho, you thieves and beggars, we are not going to die!

Among the locations for At World’s End were the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, the dunes in Guadalupe (CA), Niagara Falls in New York, the ocean battle scenes were located near Palmdale (CA) and the marine sequences in Rancho Palos Verdes (CA).

At World’s End is 2 hours and 47 minutes long, 15 minutes longer than Dead Man’s Chest and 30 minutes longer than Spider Man 3.

Despite its length, At World’s End had the best Memorial Day opening weekend, grossing $142 million, and was second only to Spider Man 3’s best opening weekend with $151 million. When you add in the international numbers, At World’s End grossed $332 million for the weekend.

In World’s End, rank the most valuable loot among any pirate loot.

Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley