intertribal | it's just good business

"There was a time when a pirate was free to make his own way in the world. But our time is comin' to an end."

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END: (no spoilers, I think) I agree with most reviews and say this movie is better than the second, but not as good as the first. Is it a satisfying end? That depends. Is it swashbuckling? Yes. And isn't that really what matters the most, for a summer popcorn movie? There are certainly flaws. If you want to understand it, it is frustrating and confusing at times. Some subplots are roused up with huge uproar, but then sort of fizzle out, leading you to wonder why that character was such a big deal in the first place. While the big battle supposedly involves hundreds of ships, you only witness the conflict at three of those ships (and yes, I know that it's hard to make big battle scenes that show everyone... but Peter Jackson does it very well).

Mainly, I will say what surprised me. I was surprised at the end. I was surprised, overall, with how atypical the entire mess of doublecrossing and bargains and spoiled deals unraveled. Don't try to keep up with those bargains, by the way - it's fruitless. I was surprised that Disney chose to make this movie as... well, as realistic, and as mature, as it did. However, it makes sense, for two reasons. First, all the characters have grown up significantly. I will say that I actually liked Elizabeth Swann, which has not happened until this movie (this movie changed course visibly with its added emphasis on the role women play on pirate ships, and not as baby pirate makers). Will Turner loses some of his boyish golly-gee-gumdrops innocence and actually becomes a pirate. And Jack Sparrow is entirely lovable, as always - and seems to have taken a hint not only from daddy Keith Richards but John Malkovich (if you've seen Being John Malkovich, you'll see what I mean - and yes, Johnny Depp rather seems to be directed by Charlie Kauffman, not Gore Verbinski, in his moments of existential pondering in Davy Jones' locker). Barbossa, Davy Jones, and Norrington get hearts, and the evil Beckett goes to business school.

Second, it is after all the last installment in a trilogy about pirates, a species that are now extinct save for the Singaporeans' descendants, who still hassle the straits in Southeast Asia to this day (the East survives, as usual). The movie opens with a mass execution of pirates, including a child, as they sing their pirate song. Some amount of growing up and sobering up is required, though they do it strong pessimist style - there's no moping, and the humor is dry and strong. The movie captures what going down as a pirate must be like. It's not the way Spartans or superheroes go down, all guts and glamour and tortured families - it's individualist and anarchist. They are after all fighting what seemed to me to be the rise of global capitalism, yearning for the days they could get wealth from digging up treasure chests and backstabbing each other - not making deals with nationalist companies. The big baddie here is not the English armada, but the Dutch East Indies Company (who have basically absorbed the English armada). So really, you know the age of the pirate is over. But the pirates will go down singing, "Yo ho ho" the whole time. And for those of us who have always felt a little kooky, a little too fond of the old ultraviolence, a little too misfit, it's good to know we've got a little pirate in us. - Recommended.