PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END

RYAN: Shiver me timbers because we just saw Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” the third installment of the Pirates series.

CAROLINE: I’m sad to report that it’s just as long, if not longer, as the second one.

RYAN: And I’m thrilled to report that it’s just as good, if not better, than the first one.

CAROLINE: I couldn’t disagree more. To me this is a franchise that should have stopped after the first film. I don’t care about any of these sequels. I’m over the swashbuckling and barnacle faces. And I just can’t get into the storyline because I just don’t care.

RYAN: I would have agreed with that after seeing the second one because it was a debacle. But this third one was the most appropriate sequel I’ve ever seen.

CAROLINE: Really. More than Harry Potter?

RYAN: Ok, no. But it’s an amazing adventure and the story was back on par. The performances are outstanding, the direction and the effects are fabulous. It is a tight and brilliant film.

CAROLINE: Excuse me? Tight?? What crack are you smoking? Tight is the last word I would use to describe this two hour and forty-five minute movie. All the action scenes are so long and overblown. But the effects are good; I’ll give you that.

RYAN: Well, it’s tightly directed, produced and performed. But it is definitely too long and could have easily lost twenty to forty minutes. Each of the many highly special-effected climax scenes are longer than they should be… that’s where time could have been shaved.

CAROLINE: Totally. I thought the movie was going to end like three times and it kept going and going, so that was a little frustrating. And maybe it’s just me, but I so didn’t follow the story. I don’t care about Davy Jones, I don’t care about the heart in a box and I don’t even know what the Black Pearl is.

RYAN: Then you clearly didn’t pay attention during the first two films. Or if you didn’t retain anything from them, that’s your own damn problem.

CAROLINE: Well the first one came out four years ago, so sue me. I’d also like to point out that Keira Knightley’s tragic under bite is so distracting that I almost couldn’t watch her scenes.

RYAN: She has the worst jaw alignment of anyone in Hollywood to be sure. But she’s really good in this movie and her character goes through an incredible journey. It’s amazing to watch how far Elizabeth’s come since the first “Pirates” movie.

CAROLINE: Hearing you talk about her ‘journey’ makes me larf a little because this is a movie based on a ride at Disney. There’s no journey happening.

RYAN: Au contraire… ‘Tis based on a ride and yet riddled with story, intrigue, drama, and adventure in this trilogy franchise. For those of us who are young-at-heart and who can appreciate these kinds of movies, there is a total journey for her. She went from being a little girl in awe of the pirate world to… well, go and see this movie and find out where she ends up. It’s brilliantly insane.

CAROLINE: At the end of the day, it felt like a kids’ film and I guess that’s why I wasn’t that into it. It is Disney after all.

RYAN: Johnny Depp has one of the coolest entrances I’ve ever seen in a movie. Geoffrey Rush is phenomenal and his pirate dialect is perfection. And Keith Richards!

CAROLINE: It was fun to see him. And he even got to strum a little guitar in the film, which was fun.

RYAN: I was disappointed in Keith Richards. He had so few lines. It makes me if he was originally supposed to have more scenes but was so bad that they cut him out…

CAROLINE: I don’t think he was ever meant to be much more than a cameo. He was fine in the scenes he had. He’s not an actor, let’s remember – especially against the likes of Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush.

RYAN: One person I was disappointed in was Orlando Bloom. He just seemed like he really didn’t want to be there. But the opening scene of the film is amazing. Then I think I noticed you dozing about twenty-five minutes into the film.

CAROLINE: Probably.

RYAN: Bottom line?

CAROLINE: I’m sure this movie will do very well at the box office, but I didn’t care for it. I know I’ll be in the minority on that one. The actors are all great, but I much preferred this movie when it was funky and new a few years ago, and a different kind of role for Johnny Depp. Now it just feels like an overblown Disney-fied mess.

RYAN: Wow. For me, I was totally engaged and into the story. I loved the adventure. You can just skip the second one because everything that you want to see happen after the first film happens in this one. It was wonderful fun and you’ll love it.