Entertainment, Movies - Marine Corps Times

Time to send ‘Pirates’ trilogy to Davy Jones’ locker

Odds bodkins, but this be one long, salty sea voyage to nowhere.

Clocking in at a perverse 168 minutes, the latest installment of Disney’s mega-franchise, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” indeed goes to the end of the world — and takes its sweet time getting there.

Ostensibly the final chapter of a trilogy (though the ambiguous ending leaves a sliver of daylight for a potential fourth film, which would be beyond pointless), “At World’s End” once again features seamless, beautiful special effects and production design.

But really, how many times can you watch a pirate swing around a mast on a rope, do a rolling somersault onto the deck of a heaving ship and bounce up with cutlass flailing?

Once, twice, thrice, yaaaaarrr, it’s great fun; the 57th time, not so much — especially since this film has been slammed into octoplexes a mere 10 months after the 155-minute second chapter, “Dead Man’s Chest.”

But then, overkill has always been a Disney hallmark. Working on the theory that if a wee bit of keelhaulin’ and freebootin’ is good, then ham-fisted slabs of it must be exponentially better, director Gore Verbinski and writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio — who have done all three films — strain so mightily to deliver an “EPIC” that it’s a wonder none of them had an aneurysm during production.

It’s too much of the wrong things, delivered like a rum barrel over the head. Too much monotonous swordplay. Too much wispy Orlando Bloom, who in my book has wrested the title of “Prince of Twee” from Johnny Depp. Too much confusing and meaningless interaction between flat characters who have come to feel like houseguests long overstaying their welcome.

Most egregiously for a big-budget action flick, it’s incredibly talky — and even more annoying, the people doing the talking often affect near-impenetrable accents.

In contrast, there are too few of the right things — like nuance, subtlety and Depp. Yes, Depp, who long lingered near the top of my list of disliked actors, has redeemed himself mightily with his campy portrayal of the fey, feisty Cap’n Jack Sparrow.

But he doesn’t appear until 45 minutes into this movie, much to its detriment. First, there’s a long opening prelude featuring Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley, whose deeply bronzed skin and blindingly white teeth almost qualify her as a special effect in her own right, especially when she stands next to a scurvy sea dog with a filthy face and a mouthful of blackened stumps).

They’ve gone to Singapore to enlist the aid of a Far Eastern pirate lord (Chow Yun-Fat). Exactly why they need his help is a bit sketchy, though that’s no surprise — the thinly drawn plots in all three films have been a chore to follow.

Seems Barbossa, Elizabeth and Will Turner (Bloom) must sail to “world’s end” to rescue Jack from Davy Jones’ locker, where he landed after battling the Kraken, the giant sea squid, at the end of “Dead Man’s Chest.”

They apparently need Sparrow to rally the nine global pirate lords to take on Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander), who has captured the beating heart of tentacled Davy Jones (Bill Nighy). Thus, Beckett has Jones and his ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman, in thrall and is using them to destroy the pirates.

(The pirate lord confab is the setting for the much-hyped cameo by the real-world inspiration for Depp’s Sparrow, whose identity has been among the worst-kept secrets in Hollywood history.)

It all leads up to a climactic sea battle between Jones’ Flying Dutchman and Sparrow’s Black Pearl, endlessly circling each other on the lip of a giant ocean whirlpool for a full 25 minutes.

All the while, a simplistic pirate riff plays over and over on the soundtrack with a lobotomizing monotony matched only by the “It’s a Small World” theme, at such ear-splitting volume that you can’t hear a word any of the actors are saying even though they’re screaming their lungs out.

Aye, ’tis sure “At World’s End” will be rakin’ in plenty o’ booty. But this leaden film drains what remains of this franchise’s once-ample charm and left me feeling like I’d been stuck for three hours on a malfunctioning Disney ride — numb, disoriented, half-deaf and slightly nauseous.

2 stars. Opens May 24. Rated PG-13 for cartoonish violence with nary a drop of blood. Savvy?