by Elizabeth Clark

Created on: June 06, 2007

This summer could become known as the summer of the disappointing sequel. While predecessors of the last chapters of this summers trilogies were outstanding in every regard, the final chapters left movie goers wanting.

Pirates of the Caribbean-At World's End was no exception. Unlike previous instalments, Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest, the third, was at best an unsatisfying conclusion. The beginning was dark, unnecessary, and a hint of the excess to come. Clearly Disney doesn't trust the movie goer's intelligence to understand that the East India Trading Company is evil where our anti heroes are concerned. Fifty hangings later, (including that of a young boy), in what seemed like a dismal attempt to replicate the despair of Les Miserables, the movie launched into it's nearly three hour long excursion.

The movie, was practically void of the characterizations we've come to love, depth being replaced by trivial non-sense, that could have been easily picked out of a Warner Brothers cartoon. Prime examples of this, are the lack of imagination we see in Davy Jones' locker, where we see Jack arguing with several other Jacks' and small Jacks on his shoulder ala good conscience/bad conscience. While this was done to enliven a scene in which Jack is alone, it seems a rather inadequate way of portraying what is happening inside Jack's mind.

In Dead Man's Chest the chemistry we saw established in the first movie, between Keira Knightley's Elizabeth and Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow continued. Audiences delighted in these interactions to the point where many hoped they would unite or at least go off together in the final instalment. This movie lacked intimate moments between them, or for that matter adequate resolution to the chemistry we saw, and came to love. The character development of Dead Man's Chest was abandoned in favour of convoluted and inadequate explanations of the arcs we had grown curious about. The histories between Tia Dalma and Davy Jones were poorly addressed, not to mention we were never told the history between Jack Sparrow and Lord Cutler Beckett.

The protagonist of the series, was always Elizabeth, her story, of how a proper young governor's daughter becomes a pirate. This is the story we are led to believe, will evolve. At World's End pulls something of a bait and switch. Throughout the movie, we see Elizabeth fall into roles of leadership. We see her give a riveting speech prior to the great climactic battle scene, to spur on her fellows.

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