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

It's been more than a week since I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and it's not a movie that remains deeply in the mind.

The Wife and I dropped the boys off at the various grandparents, had a nice leisurely dinner without kids, and then went to the wrong theater to see this movie. Not only was what I laughly call "the theater" the size of my living room, with the screen much too close, but a large family up front (and I write that, as if there was some substantially distance between us) seemed to think it was their living room, as they passed food around and tried to make sense of the movie. But my wife shushed them until they stayed shushed, and it finally settled down.

It took at least half an hour for my eyes to adjust to looking at the screen as close as it was (I'm going to claim it was slightly unfocused as well), but, luckily, nothing important had happened by then.

Let's be honest: At World's End is very much the least of the three Pirates movies. It's pleasant, and the actors are all game, but they're not given a whole lot to work with. The fact that the movie doesn't seem to want to consider anyone a villain, or allow any conflict to be all that important, or last very long, before confusing it with complications and sub-conflicts that no one at all cares about, makes it sag long before its unnecessarily long running-time is over.

I know I had more specific complaints when I saw the movie, but they don't stick in the memory, just like the movie itself. If a fourth one is ever made, I'll pay more attention to the reviews before I decide to see it -- I assumed the reviews this time were because it's a big, dumb summer sequel, but they were absolutely correct.