Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
With the invention of television and the various media for transporting motion pictures to that small screen, there have always been those who predicted a dismal future for the large screens of the movie theater. And indeed, it seemed to be so, when multi-screen cinemas seemed to blossom for a time in the early eighties, where movies seemed to be projected upon a screen the size of ones used for the standard family slide show. Those days, happily, are far behind us, and we have movies such as “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” to happily show us why big screens are a glorious thing.
The third movie in the “Pirates” series is a grand, grand colossus of a film. At its climax, its pirates swing between battling ships doing acrobatics that would almost make Spiderman jealous, said ships spinning swiftly around a the inside of a giant whirlpool while cannons blast, monster-pirates roar, and even an undead monkey performs acts of derring-do. This is spectacle! This is epic! This is film-making at its largest level!
The only downside at all is that the characters and plot of the third “Pirates” are almost swallowed up by the incredibly large concepts that drive this film. Sailing off the edge of the earth. Journeying to the land of the dead. Deciding if immortality is worth cutting one’s own heart out. Sea gods, the British Empire, and Johnny Depp all vie for enormous goals with enormous treacheries, and if one doesn’t catch all the details or understand every nuance by the time one walks out, it really doesn’t matter.
It’s a grand adventure and a good time, and this time, I think that is enough.
What Great-grandfather Sherlock might have said:
“That gives you an idea of Moriarty's gains and of the scale on which he works.”
Past Investigations
An Introduction to
Mr. Sherlock Holmes IV