Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is with out question the worst movie I have seen this year and possibly the worst movie I have seen this decade. It is boring, confusing and lacks any engaging story line.

The plot, what I can decipher, involves the main characters all going to the after world to get Jack Sparrow and bring him back to the world of the living. It takes an hour of screen time to do it. Had they just not killed him off in the second movie we could have skipped all of this pointless meandering. Once back, they all make for a pirate meeting where they all decide to join forces and do battle with the British fleet. A climactic battle at sea ensues and the movie ends. At nearly three hours you would think their would be more going on. Oh, there is lots of dialogue as everyone plots and betrays each other along the way. After an hour and 30 minutes into the movie I lost track of who was doing what. I turned to my 13 year old and asked him if he knew what was going on and he said he did not have a clue.

Sparrow had been so entertaining when we first met him in the first movie and his antics distracted the audience from the huge plot holes in the second one. Here, he lacks for charm. It is not really Depp's fault, but that of a plot that keeps putting him in ridiculous situations. Too often he is left alone in a scene talking to his imaginary self. His best scene is when he meets his dad and asks how mom is doing.

Will's and Elizabeth's romance suffers as bad as everything else in the movie. In the first film, Will was a slightly nervous young man in love with a girl above him in social standing. You rooted for them to get together. Here they share very few scenes together and their chemistry is nearly nonexistent. Their wedding scene is played for laughs. It takes place during a huge fight scene. Suffice to say, it renders the action tensionless. The final result of their relationship is about as stupid as can be.

There are more plot holes that go nowhere, like Davy Jones and his love for a sea witch. There is Elizabeth's kiss with her originally betrothed naval officer. At the very beginning of the movie the cast goes to Singapore because they do not have a ship. How did they get to Singapore if they don't have a ship? The worst scene is one where a huge British ship is attacked and for some unexplained reason the captain never gives the command to fire the cannons. He slowly walks across his ship, in a special effects filled scene, as everything is blowing up around him. It has nothing to do with the plot but the director must have thought it all looked too cool to cut out.

What a complete waste of celluloid!