![]() There's a great deal of nostalgia for the pirate way and a great many people die for it, too. What, after all, is everyone actually fighting for? Just before the big battle, Knightley gives a stirring Braveheart-style pre-battle speech to rouse the troops in which she talks about "freedom" and "the pirate way", which the nasty British Empire is seeking to wipe out. So he's fighting this guy to get that key, which opens this chest, so then he can get that thing, and help the other guy help his father, and, oh forget it." Similarly, the big showdown takes place on two ships swirling around a vortex in the middle of the ocean, with storms raging and duels on the rigging and cannons booming - proper pirate stuff, in other words, even if there are times when you want to pause the action and say, "Hang on. There are vast polar caverns and dark, starlit seas full of dead souls, while Depp is trapped in a bleached-out desert hell populated only by versions of himself and rocks that turn into crabs - something like Dante meets Being John Malkovich. This diversion is followed by a mission to sail off the edge of the world and rescue Depp's Jack Sparrow, and it's the most spectacular thing in the film. She's armed to the teeth, and as handy with a cutlass as her perennially wet paramour, Orlando Bloom. By now, Knightley has made the transition to fully fledged pirate status. Things begin with a trip to Singapore to bring Chow Yun-Fat and his Chinese pirate crew on board - ostensibly to borrow his ship, but the real reason, I suspect, is to pick up a bargain lot of Oriental costumes for Keira Knightley. The best way to enjoy it is to ignore all the fancy-dress board meetings, turn off your confused brain and simply give your eyes a treat. Of course, movies like this aren't about the fiddly detail, they're about broad strokes, and on that level, Pirates still delivers better than most. So much for "Yo ho ho and a bottle or rum." These could be Lawyers of the Caribbean. ![]() ![]() Who knew there was a highly organised council of pirate lords who meet in times of crisis at a secret headquarters? At one stage, the bickering factions even settle a dispute by pulling out a big, thick book of pirate rules. For free and reckless rogues of the high seas, these pirates sure seem to love their bureaucracy. Not to mention a growing list of piratical gadgets and trinkets: the "nine pieces of eight", the map that's like a jigsaw puzzle, Davy Jones's heart, the goddess Calypso, the compass, it goes on. There are more pacts and agreements and changes of allegiance and negotiations over terms and conditions than most viewers will be able to keep track of. Nor is there much time for joking everybody is too busy cutting deals in this movie. At times you feel as if you're watching inanimate figurines and model ships being shunted around a big map with sticks. As a result, a large portion of this film is spent pedantically aligning every character arc and plot detail so as to manoeuvre everyone into position for the big climax. In what's become standard practice for threequels, the masters of the Pirates franchise felt that the only way they could top the previous two movies was to give us more of everything: more colourful characters, more nautical mythology, even bigger special effects, all building up to a colossal, decisive "everyone vs everyone else" battle, just like The Lord of the Rings, the Matrix Reloaded, and particularly Return of the Jedi, which this movie apes as sure as part two did The Empire Strikes Back. Freighted with box-office booty, impossibly high expectations and a cast of characters that's sprawling out of control like a many-tentacled sea monster, it's a very different picture from the first fleet-footed, light-hearted movie. Even if it consisted of nothing but Johnny Depp picking his nose with a cutlass for two-and-a-half hours, everyone would still have to go and see it for themselves, wouldn't they? Our weapons are useless against it.įortunately, it's more entertaining than watching Depp pick his nose, but this is one hulking, cumbersome beast of a movie. ![]() Its predecessor was the highest-earning release of last year, and it left everything to be settled in this final instalment. I f ever there were a critic-proof movie, this is surely it. ![]()
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