Wednesday

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End does the job. It fits the bill. After reading a few reviews I was expecting this movie to be terrible, but I actually enjoyed it a lot. Its 2 hours 48 minutes flew by, relatively speaking. As they say, it's a roller coaster ride; it's popcorn munching fun. Big action sequences when you want them, and funny bits with Jack (and his dad) in-between. I didn't really expect much more. Yes, it takes itself a bit too seriously at times. Yes, the story becomes quite convoluted in its detail, with an innumerable amount of double-crossings, ideas proposed, agreed on, then dismissed, but the plot in the end is quite simple - which is how these things should be. The characters of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are almost entirely uninteresting now, but it doesn't seem to matter much. The jokes are good, some of the dialogue is great, if not perfect, and the music (although I'm sure some of it was stolen from a Sergio Leone film) and action is fun. I did, however, have a slight problem with the ending. Not wanting to give too much away I can say that it's entirely inconclusive and open-ended. Normally this is a good thing, and for half of the characters it is, but for the other half it isn't. I'm not sure how they got it right for one half and wrong for the other. It's not satisfying at all. It might be down to who signed up for another sequel and who didn't. I don't know. Overall, though, as long as you don't expect much more from it, this was good fun. Tune in tomorrow for a few extra thoughts on it.