8/6/2019 Pirates Caribbean World's End review

1/2

Pirates of the CaribbeanAt Worlds End

(2007)

I took the liberty of re-reading my reviews of the first two films before starting thisone; I wanted to know where I stood and what I had said, because I had a very

different reaction to this film. Turns out I gave the first two films breezily positivereviews, which by and large were what they deserved.

Much like the second film, Worlds Endwastes absolutely no time with exposition.

You know who Jack is and what happened to him; you know who Barbossa is andwhat happened to him; and so on. No flashbacks, no exposition, just dropping you,

Return of the Jedi-style, into the middle of the action, an undercover mission to athieves den in Singapore, where the unlikely alliance of Elizabeth (Keira Knightly)

and Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) are trying to wheedle the support of one Sao Feng

(Chow Yun-Fat), another pirate king. It turns out all the mains are interested inrecovering Jack Sparrow from Davy Jones locker, each for his own reason, whichisnt immediately spelled out for the audience, but which you sort of have to pay

attention to pick up. Events maneuver Sao Feng into agreeing to help them, andfrom there, the race is on.

Actually from the moment the lights go down, the race is on. Worlds Endfeatures a

number of high-octane action scenes, all very inventive and none as silly as lastoutings ferris wheel fight. This movie intersperses some more dialogue scenes in

between all the shootin and fightin, but still, the action is the main star, and werenot disappointed.

Where Worlds End clearly stands head and shoulders above its predecessors,

however, is in its epic feel. This time the chase isnt for treasure or to end a curse;the entire pirate worlds existence is threatened by Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander),

and he has the goods to carry out the threat. So once again were treated todouble-crosses galore, but anyone who pays attention can figure out whats going

on. The main difference in this film is that it never talks down to its audience (like,say the Spider-man films, where they assume youre an idiot); you have to payattention in this movie, but every double-cross is set up, and every charactersactions spring from believable motivation. How refreshing is that in an action

movie?

Worlds Endhas a suitably colossal ending, a truly epic battle that goes on maybe asmidge too long and is a bit too proud of its wire work. But a small sidetrack into

comedy right in the middle lightens the load amongst all the swinging swords, andthe final resolution is excellent. Each character is given an appropriate final scene,even minor ones like Norrington, and its obvious a great deal of thought and carewent into each one. The movie delivers on the visual level, of course, and on the

action level, but rarest of all beasts, it delivers on the character level as well.

8/6/2019 Pirates Caribbean World's End review

2/2

The acting is pretty strong throughout. Depp continues to delight as Jack Sparrow(scenes when he is dead are particularly funny); with another actor we might be

tired of this shtick by now, but not with Depp, who keeps us guessing with Jackuntil the end. Geoffrey Rush is terrific as Barbossa, who in this movie shifts fromvillain to rival; bringing him back was a stroke of genius. I was also particularlyimpressed with Keira Knightley, who imbues Elizabeth with believable spunk and

strength, rightly earning her a place among female action heroes of our time. Onceagain Orlando Bloom is sort of the weaker link, but against those three and the

likes of Chow Yun-Fat, you dont mind that hes only good to their outstanding.

Worlds End is bigger and better than its predecessors; the creators obviouslyaimed for the fences, and to my mind, they achieved everything they set out to doand more. This is probably the best third installment in a trilogy ever, and its near-three-hour length feels like maybe half the time. Dont wait for DVD on this one; a

story this big, this epic, really needs and deserves to be seen on the big screen. Myonly complaint is that it came out early in the season; it will be very hard for

anything else this summer to measure up to this movie.

May 29, 2007

P.S. There is a small coda scene after the credits, but the credits are about eightminutes long. Is it worth staying for? Thats your judgement call, but I liked it.