So after a full three weeks after it released, I went ahead and watched Pirates of the Caribbean:At World’s End and I must say that it was a fitting finale (?) to the trilogy. Well, almost! For starters, it was a tad lengthy and a bit too hectic at times and also a bit loony if you know what I mean. Story-wise its all about how Will, Elizabeth, Barbossa, Tia and the gang embark upon the end of the world (nearly) to save Captain Jack Sparrow from the damned Davy Jones’ Locker. And in a situation which is reminiscent of X-Men III: The Last Stand, all the Pirates must fight for their very existence against the East Indian Company who have the Flying Dutchman at their beck and call owing to their possession of Davy Jones’ Heart. It all culminates in a galactic…nope…Ocean-actic battle amongst the pirate-lords and the Dutchman and -as expected - the bad (pirates) win against the pseudo-good (East India Company)

PoTC: AWE (nice abbro that!) is in many ways an exciting and rollicking movie. But I felt that it could have been trimmed a bit so as to make it more suave and effective. I felt the scenes involving Jack Sparrow’s alter-egos could have been done away with as they are a bit too much self-involved! Moreso the build-up towards the battle royal - esp. the Singaporean angle and subsequent disarray in the ranks could have been trimmed off. It doesn’t dampen the overall experience but only succeeds in putting off the end by that much a length of time.

Performances are once-again top-drawer stuff. Johnny Depp carries forward his swaggerish n’ impish portrayal of Capt. Jack Sparrow to another level and is less of the buffoon and more of a strategist this time around. Geoffrey Rush excels as the I-want-command deputy Barbossa and lays down most of the plans, much to jack’s chagrin. Orlando Bloom has a subdued role this time around and seems ill-at-ease in choosing between his love vs. his father. Keira Knightley has an extended role and somehow ends up making a bulk of the decisions en route to becoming a Pirate King. Her emotional reprisal as a lover plus daughter is a bit tacky though. Humor is the same ol’ pirat-ey stuff and the idiotic-comedy-between-two-crew-members is played out this time around between Pintel-Ragetti (pirates) as well as two guards of the East India Company fleet. Depp’s idol/role model Keith Richards makes a cameo as Jack’s father but what evokes a few laughs is Jack’s mother! (more…)