Pirates of the Carribean - At world's end

Major spoiler alert!

When you are in a town like Ames, its the best time to catch up on alllllll the latest flicks considering there isnt much else to do.. But that wasn't the reason I saw Pirates the night it released. The reason was the trilogy (or so I think) itself! So, me n my housemate gallavanted over to the theatres for the 8:40PM show. And lucky we went 40 minutes early coz when we entered, the theatre was almost packed to capacity. We did manage to find excellent seats though.

So, the movie begins almost where it left off... the quest to find Jack Sparrow. He's dead and put away in Davy Jone's locker. I am not going to go too much into the plot itself. But as the East India Company capture the pirates and hang them for, well, piracy, the dying ones start the pirate song. And the song when sung in distress echoes across the 9 coins of 8 belonging to the 9 pirate kings. I won't reveal anymore at this point. So, Jack as it happens has been locked away in Davy Jone's locker and so the crew that abandoned him go back to fetch him. Jack's intro itself is an unnecessarily close shot of his nose (so much so that u can see the pores on his nose - eew... Ok, We all love Johnny Depp.. but not THAT much :D ). And then comes an unbelievable sequence with stone crabs. I give whoever thought of it full marks for imagination, but it did get a li'l weirdly boring here.

After Jack is back, they have to escape the locker.. And this sequence of the movie is completely delightful. The cinematography, the visual effects and everything else was purely brilliant as they make their escape. As the movie twists and turns with each person in the crew having his/her own motive (Will - wanting to rescue his dad; Elizabeth having wanted to rescue Jack out of guilt at first and then get together with Will; Barbusa wanting the Black Pearl and its crew ofcourse; Jack wanting to retain the Black Pearl, to name a few), it takes one through a journey through the unbelievable pirate life. Davy Jones is captured by the East India company, now ruled by Capn Beckett, a ruthless 'businessman' who gets to capture Jack and Will individually and sets them free for good deals he thinks he has made. The Dutchman, the ship captained by Davy Jones with the sea creatures (which has one day in land and 10 years at sea) has to have a captain at all times. So the person who killed Davy Jone's heart in that chest would have to give his heart up and be chained with the ship forever. This forms the crux of the movie towards the second half.

As it progresses, you realize that neither Will nor Jack have as much a say or do in the movie as Elizabeth. This is her movie throughout, from being crowned the 'King' at the Pirate Shipwreck Brethren to being named Captain of the Singapore Pirate crew. But this is sort of the pattern. The Curse of the Black Pearl was through and through Jack Sparrow, and the Dead Man's Chest was a whole lot of Will. So, this one was a tribute to Elizabeth. The last sequence of the maelstrom at sea was a bit too long and dragged unceremoniously with a lot of haggling between pirates and typically dumb east india company folks, and with some melodrama such as Will and Liz getting married amidst all that fighting all the way to a climax no one really expected.

Pros

1) The plot - everything was woven in so well

2) The comic timing that Jack has

3) Return of Barbusa

4) Incredible fight sequences and fantastic cinematography

5) Last but certainly not the least - Jack's dad (!!!) from whom he's gotten his obvious dressing style! And whats most interesting is that the character is played by Keith Richards, the famous Rolling Stones guitarist from whom Depp himself claimed to have inspired many of Sparrow's characteristics!! - Excellent casting and very fitting!

Cons

1) The length of the movie

2) Unnecessary drags at many points which may have helped retain all the interest and reduce the length of the movie.

All in all, if you loved the first two movies, you are sure to like this one as well. There is no doubt about that. But as in most trilogies, I maintain that Pirates-I was the best for the sheer originality of the concept. And as we got exposed to more, our expectations rose that much more and not too many movie sequels have stood up to that. But for the length of the movie, this is a good follow-up to the two movies and has excellent contiguity to its peers and provides an unexpected closure to the series. At the same time, because they gave it a slightly loose ending, I wouldnt be surprised if a year later they came up with a Pirates IV. Definitely worth a watch.