"We must fight, to run away!"

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

It just goes to show that you can’t just rely on old tricks and trite hey-I-think-I-know-this-from-somewhere scenarios to make moviegoers forget that the movie they’re currently watching is actually poorly thought-out, lacklustre and completely disappointing. This is a movie that is destined to be a guaranteed cash cow that will leave audiences either clamouring for more or relieved that this shit is finally over. I think you know which side I’m on.

I remember leaving the cinema feeling excited and truly entertained after the first one. Johnny Depp really made an impact and his eccentricities were such a highlight for me that I even copied some of his mannerisms. Yes, even that running style. It certainly was the role of a lifetime for him. In this, however, his character is reduced to a caricature of the first film. The trademark eccentrics are still there, yes, but there’s only so much flailing and funny faces one can pull to salvage a goner. I really wanted to like his performance but I left the hall feeling cheated.

I hate when films try to be too smart, just look at the final Matrix movie. It, too, suffered from a storyline that got bloated with trying to cram in as much as possible. Haven’t these people heard of the saying, Sometimes less is more? The second POTC had some of the best action sequences in recent times, and even though it was a disappointment for me, it still was somewhat tolerable. This one made me want to doze off. (And I really couldn’t for there was this amorous young couple who couldn’t stop doing things to each other, which further sullied my watching experience. I wanted to murder them.) There was just far too many double-crossing going on that it made keeping track of them a tedious affair. One minute they’re double-crossing one pirate and the next they get double-crossed and the next…With pointless subplots involving Keira Knightley reprising her Pride and Prejudice role only swords and Orlando ‘Where are my elf ears?’ Bloom, the whole movie became diluted with convolution.

Surprisingly, Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa made this otherwise insipid and confusticating movie watchable with his very pirate-y performance. He is what I think pirates would’ve been like: charismatic, cantankerous and inspirational to those around him. Plus, his pirate-y voice is spot on though there were times I couldn’t understand him. The rest were made to look pretty and the fake smudges on the likes of Bloom and Knightley made more fake.

It really is too bad that it has to “end” (the next one better be good, but in all honesty, I hope it doesn’t materialise) this way. This was an absolute waste of 3 hours.

PS: I don’t get it, but please, please tell me what the hell is so funny when Chow Yun-Fat utters the soon-to-be copied by many idiots phrase of, “Welcome to Singapore.” As a Malaysian, I don’t see how this can make you laugh out loud. I guess if he said Welcome to Malaysia instead we would have banned it for, blimey, thinking that Malaysia is a haven for Chinese pirates who strangely love to have baths in little wooden bathtubs.