Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End

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So after the so-so Dead Man's Chest, would the third and possibly last installment in the Pirates series redeem itself and remember what made the first movie such surprising fun? The answer, sadly, is no - but it's not for the want of trying. The problem is that it's trying way too hard. Taking up where the last one finished off, Elizabeth (Knightley), Will (Bloom) and Captain Barbossa (Rush) attempt to rescue Jack Sparrow (Depp) from Davey Jones' Locker, while Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander), now in control of Davey Jones' (Bill Nighy) heart, forms a tentative alliance with the macabre captain to rule the seas. Can our heroes band together a league of pirates, including the infamous Sao Feng (Chow-Yun Fat), and defeat them? The last two Pirates movies worked best when they kept Depp front and centre, and although he has more screen time here than Dead Man's Chest, it seems the writers - Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio - forgot what made the character the biggest attraction of the franchise. Gone are most of the quips, the gags and devilish nature of their best character to make room for the plot and the oh-so-many sub-plots that crash into each other in a random fashion. One character says of Sparrow: "Do you think he plans it out or makes it up as he goes along?" Maybe that's a sly wink from the writers there because it certainly feels like it was written than way. The sub-plots include the on-off relationship between Will and Elizabeth, Will searching for his father (Stellan Skarsgard), Davey Jones' love of Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) - who may or may not be the legendary Calypso - Sparrow seeking to regain control of the Black Pearl and Norrington (Jack Davenport) chasing Elizabeth. This is the Hitchhiker's Guide to Pirate Movies: anything can and will happen, which could have been genius, but there are so many alliances and allegiances and backstabbings and double-crosses it's hard to keep up with it all and it's best just to concentrate on the action sequences (there's enough of them) and the jokes (not nearly enough of those).