Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

What is the difference between a movie star and a movie actor?

A movie star acts, sometimes tolerably well, many times not so well.

A movie actor makes you believe that you are actually watching and relating/reacting/empathising with the character.

Johnny Depp is a movie actor. Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom are movie stars. Never mind about my normal rant about Keira's slouchiness, one other thing that she does in every single freaking movie that I've seen her in (Bend it Like Beckham, Love Actually, King Arthur, Pride and Prejudice, and the other two Pirate movies), she does this silly pouty lips thing. Really. If you don't believe me, go and read comments about Atonement, the director told her to stop it. All I could see was Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom pretending to be another character. Bor-ing.

But even great movie actors can't save a really bad script, I feel that Pirates 2 and Pirates 3 were movies that should have never been done. They made the story too complicated. Although the characters Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner have bigger roles in Pirates 3 (a complaint I had about Pirates 2), I felt like banging my head against the wall while watching the movie. There was a plot, but it was so confusing and tedious that it really wasn't worth telling the story.

Hubby and I couldn't remember the plot to Pirates 2, so we had actually stopped the movie to read about it online. How sad was that? And any time I sit and wonder when the movie's going to end is not a good sign. I'm usually one who tries to keep an opened mind, but the abysmal script kept me wanting for the bad guys to win.

I couldn't pick out any good parts. I can tell you some things that let me down:

• Norrington's death was poorly done and glossed over (I actually sympathised with his character, plus this is yet another example of what a proper movie actor is, in my opinion; one doesn't have to like the character to admire a good actor)
  
• Calypso's fury was lame and drawn out too much
  
• They could have easily cut the "voting of the Pirate King" scene in half
• Jack Sparrow's schizophrenic scenes should have been cut out all together
• The entire scene where they were in Davy Jones' locker was boring, and when Elizabeth Swann found out that her father died, I was hoping that she would jump into his little boat with him.
  
• I was actually happy that Elizabeth and Will couldn't be together in the end. That's what they get for boring me to death.
  
• I actually like most of the other actors in the movie, but even they couldn't save me from wanting to poke a sharp object in my eye.
  

What is the biggest downer of the Pirates trilogy was that the first movie was great. I liked it because it was different, it was fresh, it was fun, and it was an entertaining movie. Pirates 2 and 3 weren't. Disney should have stopped after the first one.

I'd give this one a 4 out of 10.