Remember how Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was this awesome movie about a ghost ship?
Remember how Pirates of the Caribbean: Dean Man’s Chest was almost an awesome movie about sea monsters, but it was 15 minutes too long and didn’t have an ending for no reason whatsoever?
Now, imagine if instead of being 15 minutes too long, it was three hours too long!
The real shame of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End isn’t how bad it is, or how boring it is, or how long it is, or how unnecessary the plot is, but at how good it could have been, had it been made an entirely different movie. When we saw the second one, my feeling was that it should have been a closed story. Jack could easily have had a fight with Davey Jones at the end, killed him, and sailed away to another adventure. The third one could have been about mermaids, or voodoo priestesses, or the fountain of Youth, or any other sea legend. Instead, it’s a sequel to a movie that didn’t need one with no purpose of its own.
Ah well, at least there’s a Fantastic Four sequel to look forward to, right?