Despite Disney’s best efforts toward the contrary, “Pirates of the Caribbean, At World’s End,” was damn good.
The movie, which I saw at midnight, put forward some excellent plot twists, good fight scenes and (finally) some superb, epic naval warfare scenes as opposed to earlier, cartoonish attempts.
The movie opens nice and strangely with a scene of men, women and even a child who has to be propped up with a barrel, being hung for taking part in acts of piracy or associating with known pirates. No gruesome–just, you know, dozens of people being dropped through the trapdoors of the gallows.
The movie was 2 hours and 48 minutes long.
Last year, I said that two and a half hours was simply too much for a Disney movie about pirates.
That statement makes perfect sense, but somehow they made the third installment longer without making it seem so.
This movie flew by, and it was by far better than “Dead Man’s Chest,” although the second movie makes much more sense now.
What should not be overlooked at the performances of Geoffrey Rush and Stellan Skarsgård, two prototypical villain actors, who gave exceptional color to “At World’s End.”