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Arts & Entertainment Movies FILM REVIEW"Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End"
Arts & Entertainment Movies FILM REVIEW"Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End" | FILM REVIEW"Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End" |
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| Written by ALEX GESHEVA | |
| Saturday, 09 June 2007 | |
 ' ' "At World's End," ironically, has a great deal in common with the Disney ride that inspired the film trilogy. Much of it is a rollicking boat ride through colorful environments filled with campy pirates that are more foolish than frightening. Scenes are eerily free of blood, the evil guys lose, the good guys win, love triumphs over all odds (like the total lack of chemistry between Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner) and the cute monkey survives. The pirates all hide a heart of gold under their grim exterior. Even the tragic ending attempts to be fun, playful and leave room for a sequel. The story: heroes Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and their retinue sail to the end of the world to rescue Captain Jack Sparrow from Davy Jones' locker (a sort of Purgatory). They must then reunite the world's pirate kings to make their final stand against the evil proto-multinational East India Company, which commands Davy Jones and the Flying Duchman. Doesn't sound too complicated, does it? Except that the writers apparently got drunk one night and thought it would be fun to throw in every element of pirate lore (and some other legends to boot) and a galleon full of characters, shake them together a bit, then see what the audience can glean from the mess. So they fudged the legend of the Flying Dutchman a bit and added the sea goddess Calypso (who can turn into both a 250-foot woman and a pile of crabs), the end of the world, Antarctica, pirate baddie Sao Feng (a role not nearly meaty enough for Hong Kong megastar Chow Yun Fat), a host of other colorful pirate folk entirely peripheral to the plot, multiple imaginary Captain Sparrows (best not to ask), a sudden cameo appearance by Keith Richards plus guitar and a lot of computer-generated effects. All that CGI makes it hard to care about the characters, especially when one is really thinking how appropriate it would be if the Black Pearl did end up "flushed" down the maelstrom. It did, after all, look like a giant swirling toilet. The good news: more of Johnny Depp and a lean, mean Keira Knightley, some very innovative and opulent settings, a few great one-liners and wisecracks, nifty boats and less of Orlando Bloom's insipid Dudley Do-Right shtick. The bad news: everyone that made the first two Pirate movies great is also side-lined. None of the interesting plot threads are followed. And in order to tie the story together somehow, all characters seem to be suffering from some form of schizophrenia or multiple-personality disorder. Nearly three hours is just not enough time to put this Humpty Dumpty together again. "At World's End" could be just another victim of sequel-itis. The summer is filled with scurvy offerings like Die Hard 4, Shrek 3, Spiderman 3 and a film adaptation of Transformers (the cartoon about giant robots that, um ... transform). Film-franchise madness may have made it inevitable that the script-writers abandon all logic. Maybe all trilogies are doomed to eventually churn out hours of computer-generated special effects with all the emotional involvement of a video game. Maybe it's time to avoid that terrible sinking sensation and head for the video store to look for some independent films, or pick up a book. Any industry that can make even Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow tedious has got to be doing something wrong. |
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