Review of Pirates of the Caribbean

The Pirate's of The Caribbean, a box office blockbuster that capitalizes on the success of the first two versions. Like most movie trilogies that try to capitalize on the success of an original production, the final version of "The Pirates of the Caribbean" was monotonous, long, and had an extremely hard to follow story line. Despite all of this, the lovable pirates played by Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley still managed to rake in huge gobs of money.

The first two releases of this trilogy were quite good, and the plot was not too extraordinary or hard to follow but the third version seemed to figuratively "jump the shark" - despite the fact that there was not a single shark in this pirate filled film. In order to understand why the film was so lackluster and monotonous one needs to understand the plot (a feat that is quite hard to do throughout most of the film). Due to this, the rest of this article will be a spoiler. If you plan on seeing the movie regardless, please don't read any further.

The movie starts off in an older version of Singapore where the captain from the first movie asks the leader of the Singaporean pirates for help. This scene quickly transforms from a diplomatic scene to a fighting scene in a matter of minutes as the East India Trading company ambushes the meeting of pirates. After this the old captain is provided with a ship and a crew to search Jack Sparrow (the flamboyant pirate that died at the end of the second release).

The ship and their crew then voyage to a very cold region. After falling their ship falls off the end of the world, the audience is greeted by a computer generated version of Jack Sparrows afterlife. The Black Pearl (the famed ship) is accompanying Jack in a desert of white along with a number of strange rocks that turn into crabs. These rocks then eventually turn into crabs and move the ship back into the ocean - all at the same time that his old crew arrives.

At this point the crew decides to leave the afterlife by sailing out of it. Captain Sparrow then realizes that before sunrise he must capsize his ship in order for everyone to live. The crew then runs back and forth until the ship flips.

Three plot twists later the nine pirate kings of the world must unite in order to summon some sort of almighty sea-god (Calypso) that will smite the British naval forces. The Singaporean pirate captain then alludes that Elizabeth (played by Keira Knightley) is the mighty sea god. After the pirate's meet, they decide to summon Calypso. At this point in the film the short pause in action seems leads the viewer to become very disinterested in the film.

The pirate crews then decide to battle against the British forces with the help of this Calypso. After summoning Calypso, Calypso then turns into a bunch of strange crabs that fall into the Ocean. This plot twist becomes very, very confusing. The Black Pearl then gets into a traditional naval battle with The Flying Dutchman. During the battle Mr. Turner asks Elizabeth to marry her, and they are wed by the captain. Meanwhile Jack wants to become the captain of the Flying Dutchman by binding his heart to the ship.

In the sea battle that ensues Mr. Turner is stabbed in the heart. Luckily, the quick thinking Jack Sparrow puts a knife in Mr. Turner's hand and uses it to kill Davy Jones -- Thus making Mr. Turner the immortal captain of The Flying Dutchman. After he is the captain, he will only be able to go on land once every 10 years to see his new wife.

The Black Pearl, and Flying Dutchmen then destroy the British flagship which causes the entire Armada to retreat (a larger naval battle would have likely been the logical choice). The story then ends with Jack Sparrow missing a ship, a sign that a sequel has been left open. I strongly hope that this is not the case.

In conclusion, this film can be summed up by quoting what Johnny Depp said in an interview before the first film, "I doubt that this film will be successful because it has an extremely weak plot". Apparently people are more interested in pirate-fighting action scenes than they are rich, interesting plots. This led the producer's of the series to actually film the second and third installations of "The Pirates of The Caribbean" at the same time.