Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Year: 2007
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp, Tom Hollander, Kiera Knightley, Bill Nighy & Geoffrey Rush
Runtime: 169 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 10/08/23
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp, Tom Hollander, Kiera Knightley, Bill Nighy & Geoffrey Rush
Runtime: 169 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 10/08/23
Following the success of The Curse of the Black Pearl two sequels were rushed into back-to-back production to ensure the financial success of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise at Disney. Both films shared a budget that totalled around $550 million, and the lion’s share of that went to the third film, At World’s End, making it the most expensive film ever made at the time. Dead Man’s Chest proved to be a massive box office success, raking in over a billion dollars, despite critical opinion being that the film was drastically inferior to the original film. At World’s End was predicted to be just as successful, if not moreso, but would it improve upon the shortfalls of its predecessor? In short, no.
Now in control of the Dead Man’s Chest and by extension Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), and the Flying Dutchman, Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) of the East India Trading Company has ordered that all pirate ships be hunted down by the Dutchman and destroyed, and all pirates to be executed. Facing a genocide, pirates all across the Caribbean sing out for the Pirate Lords to convene and declare war on the East India Trading Company. With Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and the Black Pearl trapped in Davey Jones’ Locker, the former crew of the Pearl, as well as Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Kiera Knightley) turn to the resurrected Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). Barbossa confirms that the nine Pirate Lords cannot convene until Jack is rescued as he is one of the Lords, so seeking help from Pirate Lord Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat), a mission to go beyond the worlds end and save Jack is mounted. But even if they succeed, the nine Pirate Lords will need to cooperate with each other and elect a Pirate King, something that has never happened before.
Dead Man’s Chest was too long, too complex, and not a lot actually happened in it. At World’s End, unfortunately, continues in that same stead. Clocking in at just shy of three hours, At World’s End artificially inflates its runtime by introducing a whole lot of never before mentioned lore into the Pirates of the Caribbean universe such as Pirate Lords in order to drag the proceedings out as much as possible.
The whole story that Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End tell could easily be condensed into a single two-hour film if it was made significantly less convoluted and didn’t waste so much time dallying about with unimportant things. Honestly by the time the credits rolled I wasn’t even really sure what the whole story had been about in the first place and that the ending left things woefully unresolved just to keep things open for a possible future fourth film (which did of course happen).
Now in control of the Dead Man’s Chest and by extension Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), and the Flying Dutchman, Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) of the East India Trading Company has ordered that all pirate ships be hunted down by the Dutchman and destroyed, and all pirates to be executed. Facing a genocide, pirates all across the Caribbean sing out for the Pirate Lords to convene and declare war on the East India Trading Company. With Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and the Black Pearl trapped in Davey Jones’ Locker, the former crew of the Pearl, as well as Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Kiera Knightley) turn to the resurrected Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). Barbossa confirms that the nine Pirate Lords cannot convene until Jack is rescued as he is one of the Lords, so seeking help from Pirate Lord Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat), a mission to go beyond the worlds end and save Jack is mounted. But even if they succeed, the nine Pirate Lords will need to cooperate with each other and elect a Pirate King, something that has never happened before.
Dead Man’s Chest was too long, too complex, and not a lot actually happened in it. At World’s End, unfortunately, continues in that same stead. Clocking in at just shy of three hours, At World’s End artificially inflates its runtime by introducing a whole lot of never before mentioned lore into the Pirates of the Caribbean universe such as Pirate Lords in order to drag the proceedings out as much as possible.
The whole story that Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End tell could easily be condensed into a single two-hour film if it was made significantly less convoluted and didn’t waste so much time dallying about with unimportant things. Honestly by the time the credits rolled I wasn’t even really sure what the whole story had been about in the first place and that the ending left things woefully unresolved just to keep things open for a possible future fourth film (which did of course happen).
The first hour essentially just deals with the repercussions of Dead Man’s Chest’s ending. It shows the rise to power that Beckett has had (as well as opening the film with mass hangings, honestly Disney, how did this make its way into a family film?) and Jack’s rescue mission mounted. Then the second hour comes around and absolutely nothing of note happens, seriously, there’s an entire hour in the middle of this film where the story just stops dead, and no developments are made. Why?!
The third hour (fifty minutes if you want to get really picky about it) delivers on the premise of pirates going to war against a common enemy, and honestly, it’s really cool. But I think this proves that if you trimmed down Dead Man’s Chest to just the essentials you could make that around forty minutes long, take out the middle of this film entirely and trim down the first act and boom, you have a tightly paced and exciting two-and-a-half-hour film. But then they would have needed to have written a story for another film to fulfil the two-sequel deal and that would have been much more difficult than just longing out one somewhat substantial script over two outrageously overlong films.
I don’t like the Pirate Lords storyline at all. I think it’s really poorly introduced, because it quite literally comes out of nowhere, and it’s the only thing that gives this film some meat on its bones. I also don’t like the way this Pirate Lords storyline butchers the character of Elizabeth, so I’m going to go full spoiler rant here in case you don’t want to know what happens.
So, Sao Feng gets bumped off about halfway through the film and for some reason makes Elizabeth the captain of his ship. It’s not given an explanation, even the other characters in the film seem confused by this. Anyway, the newly minted Captain Elizabeth Swann is then, by Jack’s doing, elected as Pirate King about half an hour later. So, this woman, who has only been captain less than a day to a crew that don’t like or respect her, is suddenly now the spearhead of the entire piracy community. It makes zero sense, and I genuinely nearly turned the film off and gave up when that happened. Who wrote this? Why was this approved? What possible explanation can there be for this being a good idea? There isn’t one is the answer, there is absolutely no answer than can be provided as to why this character assassination was included. It doesn’t really matter an awful lot in the grand scheme of things because it’s actually Will & Jack teaming up that sees Davy Jones & Beckett defeated, so really, honestly, what was the point?
The third hour (fifty minutes if you want to get really picky about it) delivers on the premise of pirates going to war against a common enemy, and honestly, it’s really cool. But I think this proves that if you trimmed down Dead Man’s Chest to just the essentials you could make that around forty minutes long, take out the middle of this film entirely and trim down the first act and boom, you have a tightly paced and exciting two-and-a-half-hour film. But then they would have needed to have written a story for another film to fulfil the two-sequel deal and that would have been much more difficult than just longing out one somewhat substantial script over two outrageously overlong films.
I don’t like the Pirate Lords storyline at all. I think it’s really poorly introduced, because it quite literally comes out of nowhere, and it’s the only thing that gives this film some meat on its bones. I also don’t like the way this Pirate Lords storyline butchers the character of Elizabeth, so I’m going to go full spoiler rant here in case you don’t want to know what happens.
So, Sao Feng gets bumped off about halfway through the film and for some reason makes Elizabeth the captain of his ship. It’s not given an explanation, even the other characters in the film seem confused by this. Anyway, the newly minted Captain Elizabeth Swann is then, by Jack’s doing, elected as Pirate King about half an hour later. So, this woman, who has only been captain less than a day to a crew that don’t like or respect her, is suddenly now the spearhead of the entire piracy community. It makes zero sense, and I genuinely nearly turned the film off and gave up when that happened. Who wrote this? Why was this approved? What possible explanation can there be for this being a good idea? There isn’t one is the answer, there is absolutely no answer than can be provided as to why this character assassination was included. It doesn’t really matter an awful lot in the grand scheme of things because it’s actually Will & Jack teaming up that sees Davy Jones & Beckett defeated, so really, honestly, what was the point?
Swiftly moving on from that because I need to bring my blood pressure down. I do like the third act overall. Like I say, once the pirate armies make their advances and we get this massive naval warfare sequence, I was captivated. Particularly the destruction of the Endeavour and defeat of Beckett, what a scene! I loved the choice of slow motion as the ship basically disintegrates around Beckett too, really powerful imagery and beautifully done.
As with Dead Man’s Chest, the production values on this film are crazy good. Everything looks brilliant and this is what epic event cinema should look like. Real sets, real locations, real stunts, not five actors in mocap suits on an entirely green sound stage. Hans Zimmer’s score is also equally epic, it’s powerful and triumphant, and it really does give you shivers. The film looks and sounds so amazing, which is why it’s such a shame that the story is as rubbish as it is.
The original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy wraps itself up unsatisfactorily, but obviously kept things open for future adventures. At World’s End is a complete mess, like Dead Man’s Chest before it. It’s a shame too because The Curse of the Black Pearl was such a brilliant film, so to throw away what could have been one of the most captivating epic family film trilogies of the century because of lazy thinly spread writing feels like a waste. I will always be in awe at how good these films look, and how exciting they are once they actually get going, but they’re too long and boring to want to revisit often, if ever.
At World’s End did achieve what it set out to do, make lots of money, but if you’re yet to check the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise out, maybe just watch The Curse of the Black Pearl and forget the sequels ever existed.
As with Dead Man’s Chest, the production values on this film are crazy good. Everything looks brilliant and this is what epic event cinema should look like. Real sets, real locations, real stunts, not five actors in mocap suits on an entirely green sound stage. Hans Zimmer’s score is also equally epic, it’s powerful and triumphant, and it really does give you shivers. The film looks and sounds so amazing, which is why it’s such a shame that the story is as rubbish as it is.
The original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy wraps itself up unsatisfactorily, but obviously kept things open for future adventures. At World’s End is a complete mess, like Dead Man’s Chest before it. It’s a shame too because The Curse of the Black Pearl was such a brilliant film, so to throw away what could have been one of the most captivating epic family film trilogies of the century because of lazy thinly spread writing feels like a waste. I will always be in awe at how good these films look, and how exciting they are once they actually get going, but they’re too long and boring to want to revisit often, if ever.
At World’s End did achieve what it set out to do, make lots of money, but if you’re yet to check the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise out, maybe just watch The Curse of the Black Pearl and forget the sequels ever existed.