Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

My wife and I rarely go out of our way to get to the theatre thanks to our two-year-old. Since the last installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, however, we’ve been aching to see how the story ends, so we made the time to catch At World’s End on opening weekend.

My review of At World’s End can be summarized like this: If you liked Dead Man’s Chest, you’ll like this, too. It’s got the same brand of over-the-top action, cut-throat intrigue, and diagram-worthy plot as its predecessor. This shouldn’t come as any surprise, considering they were written and filmed together in much the same manner as Lord of the Rings.

On the other hand, if you couldn’t follow Dead Man’s Chest, don’t expect to understand what’s going on in At World’s End. I actually found myself thanking the writers for killing off characters. “Thank god,” I thought. “That’s one less person that I need to keep track of.” Seriously, it’s that hard to follow all of the characters and their crisscrossing motivations. I have to wonder if it’s more fun to watch the second time when you’ve had a chance to review it all.

That minor criticism aside, At World’s End delivers up the sort of supernatural swashbuckling that we’ve all come to expect of the genre. If you liked its prequels, you’ll like it. If not, there’s always Spiderman 3.