Pirates of the Caribbean: At the Movie's End?

Okay, okay, so I know I'm about two months behind catching up with Captain Jack and the gang in the throes of piracy. I was really looking forward to the swashbuckling conclusion of the triology. But instead of three being a charm, it sunk the whole series. First of all, let's talk about the introduction of the Yun-Fat Chow character into the storyline that goes nowhere. The screen was already pretty crowded with a colorful cast of characters (and star power, what with Bill Nighy behind Davey Jones and Geoffrey Rush at the helm of Barbosa) to add one more for me to keep up with and with a weak storyline at best. Not to mention that Jonathan Pryce was perfectly wasted in this movie, screen time reduced to nil and not even a good line among the few he delivers.

Depp is still lovable as the batty Jack Sparrow, but Keith Richards' much-discussed cameo as his father fell horribly flat, lacking any of the antics that inspired Sparrow's mannerisms. Then there's the matter of the love story between Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan that's been sailing the high seas through all this drama. It was completely lost in barnacle people and pirate lords and confusing plot twists. By the time we got back from the world's end and the relationship at hand, all the chemistry had gone out of the connection until I was kind of hoping that Elizabeth might run away with Sparrow. Or even Barbosa. Add to that the over-the-top complications of Davey Jones and Calypso, which culminated in a ship battle that went on for way too long and an anti-climatic resolution that had me wondering why I'd bothered to try and follow that plot line in the first place.

But most maddening of all was the resolution for Will and Elizabeth - and I won't spoil it here. Suffice it to say, it was slightly devoid of the happily ever after somewhat expected in the Mouse Kingdom movies. Having followed them to the ends of the earth and back, I couldn't help feeling like, "That's it? That's all I get?" Perhaps I shouldn't blame it all on the writers, for the most romantic moment of the movie (and this is relatively speaking) might have been ruined by my father who said, "Wow. She's got big feet."

I will give credit to the brief nod to the original Disney ride - which has been dismantled and recreated in the image of Depp - that only real Disney-holics like myself would catch. There's a moment where the screen goes dark and all you hear is the sound, high winds and then a voice that warns of pirate treachery. It's from the old ride, just before the boat descended into the rapids. It gave me a tiny thrill to catch it.

Despite my love of Sparrow, I can't help feeling like the third helping tanked this series, and I prefer to go back and watched the first one and just pretend it ends there.