Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

161 minutes??? Am I being punished for something? Spectacular and dazzling, and this time also awfully dull and dumb. The story, if there is a story to speak of, was literally oversaturated with characters. There were so many captains only Captain America and Captain Morgan were missing but no room left for a watchable plot. The screenplay was flat and annoying. The Will and Elizabeth romance ran through the whole film, but I couldn’t care less about it. Orlando Bloom played his usual self and Keira Knightley’s performance wasn't anything special either. Her motivational speech, for instance, was enough to put you to sleep. Johnny Depp’s acting seemed like he had heard that speech at least three times. Poor. (16/12/2016)

I didn't mind the length of the film, but rather its momentary lack of clarity. However, I was staring with my mouth open the whole time, waiting to see what would come next, and having fun. The conclusion of the trilogy is worthy if unnecessarily long. And I wasn’t able to properly orient myself in the plot until the second time I watched it.__P.S. Orlando Bloom is a fool.__P.P.S. Because of the final bombastic three-quarters of an hour, it never ceases to annoy me that I didn't see the third Pirates in the movie theater. (05/06/2009)

You have to give it to the third Pirates movie: you can see and hear each and every dollar in it. Really loudly. Which is unusual in popcorn movies lately. Production design, effects, Zimmer’s music, the camerawork... On the technical side, almost nothing to fault. The running time certainly is over-long, there isn’t much of a screenplay and so it dwells in the “everybody plotting against everybody else" bracket. But where part two dawdled about in androgynous family entertainment going nowhere, here the Pirates have become darker and the protagonists have moved from the black and white into the gray character zone where nobody wears a halo. And that’s good, because hand in hand with it becoming more “serious", there is less humor, mainly of the infantile type. Not that it disappeared completely, but it isn’t humor at all costs like last time. And also the Jack character takes a rear seat, which is a significant improvement and does much to rehabilitate the Sparrow figure itself. The space left by him is taken up more than skillfully by Rush. And still, we get humor; “Larry" is a Monty Python caliber gag. It mainly depends what you want out of the third Pirates - if it’s some harmless way of spending time with the whole family, like the first two parts, then you will be disappointed. If it’s technically precise viewing that, despite a few little flaws (or sometimes huge ones - pointless storylines, animal escapades, multiJack etc.), is bursting with just the right pirate feel to it, then you could give this episode a go... And the neat homage to Leone and Morricone warms the heart. (25/05/2007)

A beautifully sentimental ending, which somewhat saved the overall impression that was too drawn out and lacking the magic of the first film. It's just too much of a blockbuster now, a money-making machine, and it shows. The actors are great, Orlando Bloom is probably the most unbearable of all his roles here, and the special effects are beautiful, but that's already kind of standard. (15/04/2015)

Each subsequent continuation of a commercially successful blockbuster usually means that its creators wanted to surpass the previous film by increasing the budget, adding more bombastic action, more special, more of everything, and yet occasionally a film comes along that surpasses its predecessor. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is no exception to this rule. It is a case of screenwriting orgies, where the screenwriters literally went of their way to fit as many "shocking" twists, betrayals of the main characters, and lightning-fast changes in the situation into one film. As a result, the script does not work, and even though it is a comedy, at times it reeks of self-parody. But there is still the bombastic set design with plenty of successful digital tricks, relatively decent action, mutual teasing, and lots of small jokes, which allows me to give it three stars. It is a typical popcorn movie, where it is better not to think much and just perceive the visuals and movement on the screen. Overall impression: 50%. (09/06/2011)