I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on Thursday evening. I’m not really in the right frame of mind to write a comprehensive review, but in a word: j’adore.
The overall impression I got from the various reviews I read was that it was overlong and overcomplicated. The former doesn’t really bother me: I sat through and loved all of the Lord of the Rings movies, not to mention Grindhouse (which was my favorite movie until now). As far as I’m concerned, the longer the better: if I’m going to spend $9 for a ticket, I prefer to be entertained for more than an hour and a half.
As for being overcomplicated… I personally had little problem following the plot, but I can see where others might have been lost. But that entire line of argument strikes me as a little beside the point, frankly. The entire Pirates franchise has been a shining example of the sort of Saturday matinee adventure genre. Like other stand-out films of that type (the Indiana Jones films, the 1990s Mummy remake), the story is pretty much just an excuse to get have impressive choreographed action sequences. And the action sequences in this movie are better than anything since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (which, similarly, had plot holes you could drive a mack truck through).
And that, to me, is the key element here. Most modern action movies are certainly exciting, but they’re almost universally dour affairs. Take Casino Royale for an example: one of the major selling points of that movie was that it removed the sillier aspects of the James Bond franchise that had managed to persist even after the series turned its back on the deliberate camp of the Roger Moore films three decades ago. Daniel Craig’s Bond was a wounded, humorless individual. The same thing applies to, say, Batman Begins, which was advertised as a return to seriousness for a franchise that had descended into levels of camp that would have embarrassed Adam West (which, come to think of it, was pretty much the same way that Tim Burton’s 1989 film was advertised…).
Please don’t get me wrong: I loved both Casino Royale and Batman Begins, and I think both films deserve credit for revitalizing their franchises, both of which had sunk pretty low with recent installments. There’s a difference between doing lighthearted and doing lighthearted well, after all. The difference between Batman and Robin and At World’s End is that the latter actually does manage to have fun with itself without descending into pathetic self-parody. It’s not a comedy, to be sure, but when Johnny Depp gets involved in a sword fight, it’s a lot more fun than when Daniel Craig gets involved in a gun fight.
And that goes a long way towards letting me overlook any other flaws in the film. I went expecting to be exhilarated, not necessarily intellectually engaged. As it happens, I think the film was well written, but even if it hadn’t been, I’d have come out of the theater satisfied. Which is more than I could say for the rather disappointing Spider-Man 3. And given my disappointment with Shrek the Third, I’m relieved to say that At World’s End managed to finally break the string of bad second sequels that had been building ever since the execrable X-Men: The Last Stand.
Since I mentioned Daniel Craig earlier, I should also point out that I got to see the preview for The Golden Compass as well (in which he features). As a fan of Philip Pullman’s books, I must say that I’m quite thrilled about the overall look of the production, and the casting seems pretty much spot-on, as well. So that’s another film I’ve got to look forward to before the year’s out. Even considering the disappointment of Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third, it look like 2007 could still turn out to be a great year for the silver screen.
