Emily Belsey

I did the trendy thing this weekend and saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

Uh… I hated it.

Keep in mind, when I saw this movie, I had…

• gotten less than 5 hrs of sleep the night before (I hosted a jr. high girls’ sleepover at my parent’s house)
• not gotten a nap that afternoon (don’t normally need them, but see previous)
• gotten sunburned while walking my dog around Lake Murray
• a headache (probably a result of the previous three items)

But even if those factors hand’t been an issue, I doubt my opinion of this third (and hopefully last) installment of the Pirates franchise would change very much.

First of all, the movie was about an hour too long. There were countless scenes that could’ve been cut, and the plot would’ve stayed the same.

Secondly, the main characters (Will, Elizabeth, Jack) were so boring, predictable, and thus annoying, that I found myself waiting for the supporting characters to show up. Geoffrey Rush and Bill Nighy are far better actors and actually seemed to enjoy their silly characters and I felt that the sense of fun really came across. Barbossa was as unscrupulous as ever and Davy Jones showed surprising range of emotion and depth of character.

Another thing that still bothers me about “At World’s End” is the amount and type of violence in it. For a Disney movie and a PG-13 rating, this movie should’ve been a lot less graphic and ruthless with its violence. There is a scene where a woman is shot point-blank in the forehead and the shot lingers on her face for a few seconds. That scene, still haunting me tonight, is like what I expected (and saw) when I saw the spectacular, Oscar-winning The Departed. It is definitely NOT what I expected from this movie. I even seriously reconsidered my promise to take two thirteen-year-olds to the movie.

All of these things might have been overlooked or at least forgiven if the plot had had any sort of sense, logic, or even heart.  Instead, the plot was so convoluted, distracted, and unconnected that it even seemed to give up on itself.  More than once I exclaimed aloud, “Are you kidding me?!?”

This movie uses every trick in the book, from banal jokes to gratuitous violence, just to keep the movie meandering for nearly three hours.

If you’ve yet to see it, don’t.  If you have already, I’m sorry.

But at least this summer promises us better sequels.

Me?  I’m holding out for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and The Bourne Ultimatum.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 10:43 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.