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Movie review: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
CHOW YUN-FAT as Captain Sao Feng and JOHNNY DEPP as Captain Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
I know it’s “when,” not “if,” you’re planning on seeing director Gore Verbinski’s blow-the-audience-down Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. But, make sure you go with a full night’s sleep, a full stomach and an empty bladder; because you’re going to need all three if you want maximum enjoyment of all 160 minutes glued to your seat not missing one action- or revelations-packed moment.
Challenging your mind’s ability to multi-task, screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio have neglected no character or unresolved plot point from Pirates 1 and 2 in charting loose-ends-tying adventures for Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and his friends and foes of the Black Pearl, the Flying Dutchman and the Endeavor. At one point, Jack’s perennial nemesis, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who has been restored to the bounding main, states, “You have to be lost to find the place you’ve never been before.” In the viewer’s case, feeling lost starts about the time Jack is rescued from Davy Jones Locker a little the worse for mental wear.
Most of the characters have been re-introduced by then, along with a new prize of navigational charts to add to that of the pieces of eight and the chest holding the broken heart of Davy Jones. The Brethren (the major Pirate clans) has been called to hoist the colors and join forces against the East India Trading Company, led by the “just good business” Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) for a final stand at Shipwreck Cove (on Shipwreck Island, near Shipwreck Town).
Before and during that chaotic battle complete with whirlpool, Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) comes into her own fending off suitors, facing the fate of her father, commanding a ship, attempting to reunite Will (Orlando Bloom) with his father, Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), and rallying the Brethren when squabbling breaks out (“This is madness!” “This is politics!”), becoming a surprise contender for king of the pirates and resolving her estrangement from Will in the midst of a major sea battle.
Before Jack fades back into the woodwork after a memorable encounter with his father, Captain Teague (Keith Richards), he’s given the hairy task of crossing swords with Davy Jones (Bill Nighy). Along with familiar characters and elements like the wooden-eyed sailor, the monkey and the compass that points to what your heart wants most, the story introduces the legend of Calypso and the Green Flash that signals when a soul comes back from the land of the dead.
What has not come back from the dead in this third installment is Jack Sparrow as the sexy, simpering scallywag that wowed the audience in the first Pirates film with his devil-may-care defiance and unique code of ethics. Even though the movie is called Pirates, there’s only one pirate that has truly captured the imagination and loyalty of the movies’ fans; and the next team to work on the story better give the fans more of Jack Sparrow.
If you want a hint of where the saga of Jack is going, make sure you stay through the closing credits. Pirates of the Caribbean At World’s End is a Walt Disney Pictures release, rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action/adventure violence and some frightening images.
