Never a Dull Moment ; 'World's End' Explodes With Action, Impressive Acting

May 24, 02:41 PM

Current Headlines: By RICHARD ROEPER, UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

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PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END

170 minutes, PG-13

(for intense sequences of action/adventure violence and frightening images)

Directed by Gore Verbinski. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. Photographed by Dariusz Wolski. Edited by Stephen E. Rivkin and Craig Wood. Music by Hans Zimmer.

With Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgard, Bill Nighy, Chow Yun-Fat, Geoffrey Rush, Naomie Harrie and Tom Hollander.

There is a moment late in "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" when Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and Keira Knightley stride three abreast to a summit meeting of sorts. Adorned in their elaborate getups, they personify pirate cool.

Watching three generations of terrific actors who have poured so much talent and energy into their roles over three films, I had to acknowledge that even though I haven't been the biggest fan of the "Pirates" franchise, these characters have earned their iconic status. They are part of pirate movie lore.

If Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. could see the ridiculously entertaining action sequences in the third "Pirates" movie, they'd drop their swords in amazement. The sets, costumes, stunts and special effects are beyond what anyone could have dreamed during the Golden Age of the pirate movie.

Not that there's much in the way of actual pirating going on in "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." Everyone is too busy restoring life to dead creatures, cracking jokes, debating pirate law (Who knew?), lifting curses, switching allegiances and coping with hallucinations, among other problems, to engage in anything so mundane as storming a ship and making off with the loot.

There's even a temporary rum shortage, for shiver-me-timbers' sake. Clocking in at 170 minutes, this is one long, convoluted and intermittently inexplicable pirate epic but it's worth seeing for the jaw-dropping action, the doses of irreverent humor and, of course, the star power of Depp, Knightley, Rush, Orlando Bloom, Bill Nighy, Chow Yun-Fat and a host of other talented actors who utter their lines with Shakespearean gusto, even if they're dripping wet and pretending to do battle with computer-generated creatures.

Many swashbuckling flicks are heavy on the swordplay and light on the plot machinations, but all of the "Pirates" movies are dense with story lines that sometimes careen off the course of logic altogether. At times I had little idea what the characters in "At World's End" were talking about, what they were after, why the pirate who used to be a good guy is now a bad guy, and vice versa. "Babel" was easier to follow.

But does it matter? We're here for the explosions and the swordplay and the crackling one-liners. We're here to watch Depp's increasingly fey Capt. Jack Sparrow sashay his way in and out of trouble. We're here to see if Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann will find everlasting love or be torn apart by evil forces. We're also here for the overhyped cameo by Keith Richards, perhaps the only human alive who would need minimal makeup and little wardrobe help to play a craggy-faced pirate of the early 19th century. (The good news is: Richards is great fun in a tiny role.)

On those counts, "At World's End" delivers. Director Gore Verbinski and the stunt and special-effects crews have created one of the most impressive blends of live-action work and computer- generated wizardry ever put on film. When you see a ship literally rising from the sea, or half-men, half-fish doing battle with pirates, you know it's not all real, but it sure looks that way.

One of the conceits of the "Pirates" movies is that "dead" is a relative term. As we pick up the action in "At World's End," Capt. Jack Sparrow is trapped in Davy Jones' locker, as the saying goes and he often hallucinates other Jack Sparrows of various sizes and dispositions, creating a kind of "Being John Malkovich" effect. Rush's Capt. Barbossa is back from the dead, Will Turner's father is a barnacle-faced captive on the ferocious ghost ship the Flying Dutchman, Naomie Harris' Tia Dalma might not be human at all, and Nighy's Davy Jones is a literally heartless, octopus-faced tyrant who has a moment of humanity in which we get to see his actual human features. At least one other major character suffers a shocking death, but he doesn't seem to be too upset about it.

After Will, Elizabeth and Barbossa rescue Capt. Jack, they team up to do battle with the evil Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) and the East India Co., which has gained control of the Flying Dutchman and is systematically wiping out the pirate population. In a council meeting that's like something out of "Star Wars," the colorfully costumed, multi-ethnic Nine Lords of the Brethren Court convenes to debate how best to fend off Beckett and Davy Jones.

It's hard to care about a lot of this, especially when some of the characters are spouting pirate law in accents thicker than the braids in Johnny Depp's hair. The tension between Elizabeth and Will also seems a bit contrived, with both characters alienating each other for the sake of the plot. If their love is timeless, why so many betrayals and misunderstandings?

These quibbles aside, "At World's End" rarely drags and is almost always entertaining. Everyone gets their moment of truth and/or triumph, with Knightley's Elizabeth attaining a particularly spectacular level of empowerment. Even when the story frustrates, the acting and the visuals never disappoint.

Richard Roeper, columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times and co-host of "Ebert & Roeper," is filling in for Roger Ebert as he recovers from surgery.

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