Film Details:
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End (12A)
Action(2007)
168mins US
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley

Interview with Orlando Bloom (Will Turner)
Interview with Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Swann)
Interview with Jerry Bruckheimer (Producer)

Read David Clee's review
Read Jo Planter's review

LondonNet Film Review by David Clee
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End

The Pirates franchise crosses the oceans, first to Singapore, next to what looks like Antarctica and then to the Other Side, as promised in the title, collecting a multi-racial gang of blundering buccaneers along the way...

To an even greater extent than the first two films, At World's End is a film of astonishing visual treats and incredibly imagined set-piece action scenes. Icy wastes, desert islands and moonlit sea-caverns have never looked so crisply beautiful and the accompanying swash-buckling never so precisely choreographed.

On the downside, the large element of just-because-we-can about the camera work and CGI looks like it's led to deficiencies in story and characterisation. The story concerns the pirates' war with authority in the shape of the British East India Company, but – an affecting pre-credit sequence apart - there isn't enough authority and normality on show to rebel against.

Pirates are cool because they aren't boring like everyone else. When everyone is a pirate, that doesn't show up too clearly. In the first film, Elizabeth Swan, Keira Knightley's character, was nine parts virtuous English rose to one part pouting pirate wannabe; in World's End, the ratio is reversed, Elizabeth's pirate-self loses the sense of being wrenched from its conformist roots and in any case Knightley just isn't hard-edged enough to carry it off. Something similar has happened to Orlando Bloom's Will Turner, who seems lost for most of the film.

The other actors don't suffer in the same way as they have only to reprise their roles and there's still enough humour-juice in the likes of Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush), Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and the rest to hold the interest, though even they need new characters such as Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat) and Jack's dad (Keith Richards) to help keep the creaking plot afloat.

Great slapstick turns, not least by the monkey and parrot, make for some bonus laugh-out-loud moments and it is mainly to the humour and the eye-catching cinematics that we must look for sustenance in what is a muddled film with spectacular moments.

- David Clee

Interview with Orlando Bloom (Will Turner)
Interview with Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Swann)
Interview with Jerry Bruckheimer (Producer)

LondonNet Film Review by Jo Planter
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End

In the same week that the one of the nation's historical treasures, the Cutty Sark, went up in flames, we bear witness to a second maritime disaster. Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End, the third installment of the blockbuster franchise, is not a complete shipwreck but it sails perilously close, capsizing in the first hour under the weight of audience expectation...

Rumbustious action set pieces, augmented with spectacular computer generated effects, bookend the film and cute comic interludes buoy the downbeat mood. However, there's no mistaking warning flares sent up by Johnny Depp, who looks interminably bored with his character, salty seadog Jack Sparrow. He barely musters the energy to deliver a performance.

Equally troubling is the middle hour of this exhausting third voyage, which becomes waterlogged with dense, muddled exposition. If you haven't seen the first two films, there's very little point seeing At World's End. Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio presume their audience are savvy with the characters and their respective fates, chugging full steam ahead with the quest to rescue Jack from Davy Jones' locker. En route, they tie up many of the loose narrative threads and contrive a big bang finale that clearly sets up yet another sequel.

The future looked decidedly bleak for Jack Sparrow (Depp) at the end of Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Falling foul of a pact forged with the multi-tentacled Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), Jack finds himself consigned to purgatory in Davy Jones' locker. Thankfully, lovebirds Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) have joined forces with Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to rescue Jack from walking the plank to eternal damnation.

They head to Singapore to meet with Chinese pirate Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat), in the hope of creating an alliance against the despicable East India Trading Company, which now controls Davy and his vessel, The Flying Dutchman. "The song has been sung. The time is upon us. We must convene the brethren court," Barbossa tells Sao Feng, referring to the secret gathering of the nine pirate clans, the guardians of the legendary pieces of eight. The meeting with Sao Feng ends in bloodshed and Will, Elizabeth, Barbossa and their shipmates - including soothsayer Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) and bumbling double-act Ragetti (Mackenzie Crook) and Pintel (Lee Arenberg) - barely escape with their lives. They head to the very edge of the world in search of Jack, where Barbossa helpfully informs his terrified crew, "It's not getting to The Land Of The Dead that's the problem... it's getting back!" Meanwhile, Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), who commands the troops of the East India Trading Company, bides his time, waiting for the perfect moment to destroy the pirates. "The brethren know they face extinction," he smarms. "All that remains is for them to decide where they make their final stand."

The overblown action sequences are thrilling as expected, including skirmishes on the high seas with boats and their crews being blown to smithereens by deafening cannon fire. Jack's hare-brained scheme to escape The Land Of The Dead definitely shivers the timbers, as does Keith Richards' delicious appearance as Sparrow Snr, strumming a guitar and dispensing cryptic advice to his wastrel son: "It's not about living forever Jackie. The trick is living with yourself forever."

The 168-minute running time is an ordeal and the film noticeably treads water in the bloated middle act. Knightley is thrust to the fore in this third film, pouting and poising like a trooper and usurping both Bloom and Depp. She flings herself into the melee with some impressive sword fights and delivers the less than rousing speeches. Miraculously, everyone listens. The romance between Elizabeth and Will is soaked through with sappiness, resolved in the midst of the titanic final battle in a manner that will have even the most ardent fan of the series screaming "Plausibility Overboard!" Bloom postures and pouts with equal fervour while Depp pressgangs the few decent one-liners, like when Jack recoils at the thought of taking Davy Jones' place as captain of the Flying Dutchman. "I don't have the face for tentacles," he laments in that cod-English accent.

Hollander and Nighy make colourful villains for the little screen time afforded them. Supporting performances are drowned out by Han Zimmer's bombastic orchestral score. In truth, Gore Verbinski's film can weather an entire armada of critical drubbing: Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest became only the third film in history to gross in excess of USD1 billion worldwide.

Audiences adore Depp's swaggering antihero and the cliffhanger finish of the second film will attract cinemagoers in their droves, quite possibly shattering box office records in the process. Unfortunately, once the initial storm of excitement and anticipation blows itself out, At World's End will be dead in the water, bound for an early berth on DVD.

- Jo Planter