Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
2007
*
Director: Gore Verbinski
Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Chow Yun-Fat
This massively successful franchise started as a sympathetic pirate movie with some fresh supernatural elements. By the third film it has become a shapeless three-hour special effect behemoth that features some pirates. All fun and any sense of realism have been drained out of this beast now that Jack, Will, Elizabeth, Barbossa, Davy Jones and the East India Trading Company have their final confrontation. The once loveable characters have turned into slimy turncoats who change sides faster than you can say "Arr!". If you can keep track whose side or whose boat they're on at any given time, and you understand why they're there, you have my highest respect. The whole thing is incredibly plot-heavy for a film without any narrative. Followed by On Stranger Tides in 2011.
