Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

From an aesthetic perspective, it was amazing! The cinematography was gorgeous, the scenery spectacular, and the CGI seamlessly incorporated, providing the audience with views that could probably never be seen on earth (at least not by the average person). There were two shots that I particularly liked. The first (or was it the second? Now I can't remember the order… oh, well) was an arial view of the Black Pearl sailing on a tranquil, black sea, studded with the reflection of stars. The other was the Black Pearl sailing in some arctic region into a cave. The sunlight is streaming in from the audience's left, through a break in the ice, and the ship sails through the sunlight into the shadows. As cold as it looked, I almost wished I could be on board the ship to experience that place in real life.

The dialogue was also much better than it was in Pirates II (of course, there was little dialogue to speak of in Pirates II). Some of the arguments between Jack and Barbossa were pretty funny (Jack: Captain gives orders on the ship. Barbossa: The Captain of this ship is giving orders! Jack: [thinking] My ship, makes me captain! Barbossa: They be my charts! Jack: That makes you... Chart-man!). I also enjoyed the short interchange (notice, I did not say dialogue) between Jack and his father (Jack: How's Mum? Captain Teague: [holds up a shrunken head] Jack: she looks good.). My favorite line: "a woman scorned, like which hell hath no fury than!" had me laughing, but no one else seemed to get the humor in Jack's creative rendition of William Congrave's line from The Mourning Bride.

I think the characters were much better developed in general. Will trades in his dreamy-eyed optimism for hard-core utilitarian realism. His goal is no longer just to "get the girl" but also to free his father from an eternity of slavery. He has come a long way from his "aye, avast!" days. Jack does not even recognize the new Will. When he asks "have you come because you need my help to save a certain distressing damsel? Er... rather damsel in distress? Either one," he takes the "no" response as proof he is dreaming... or halucinating.

As I have said before, the score for this movie is fabulous! I am listening to it right now - can't get enough of it!

The comedy aspect of Pirates III gets high marks from me. I found much of it very amusing. Witty Jack pulled through on his one-liners:

Close your eyes and pretend it's all a bad dream. That's how I get by.
Cruel is a matter of perspective.
Permit me to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket.
You add an agreeable sense of the macabre to any delirium.
Shoot him, cut out his tongue, then shoot his tongue!

My favorite character, however, was Jack, the "un-dead monkey." He is just so cute from begining to end! From little Singaporean organ grinder, to pulling a gun on the parrot, to being "daddy's little boy," he was always good for a laugh.

Now for the cons... unfortunately, I must take issue with what seemed like an underlying political agenda. The first scene was trying to too hard to be Gitmo (the Guantanamo Bay detainee camp). I probably would not have even made the connection immediately if the phrase "aiding and abetting" (directly from the Patriot Act) had not been in there. There were just too many characaturizations in that first scene. As the movie continues, the audience is shown the importance of protecting all ways of life, even at great expence (i.e. the lives of all the British soldiers), even if this way of life hurts all the law-abiding citizens of the world. There is no consequence for wrong (except in the case of Beckett) and those who lie, cheat, and steal as a way of life are the reigning heros at the end of the movie. Obviously, when you go to see a movie where Johnny Depp plays a pirate, you expect to root for a pirate, but (I don't know, maybe it's just me) I still expect there to be a line of distinction drawn between the "good" pirates and "bad" pirates (like it was portrayed in the first movie).

Overall, would I recommend this movie? Absolutely! Just understand what you're watching. Artistically and for the entertainment value, I would definitely recommend it.