Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

What’s the Story?

Captain Jack (Johnny Depp) is back IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END, living in the hallucinatory limbo of Davy Jones' Locker. While he's busy seeing imaginary clones of himself, Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), and resurrected Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) travel to the Singapore. Their goal is to enlist pirate lord Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat) to help save Jack and join his fellow captains against the British, who are in control of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and his Flying Dutchman crew. But that's just the beginning -- basically, everyone's out for revenge. Will must free his father, Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), from Davy's cursed ship; Elizabeth finds herself an avenging pirate captain; and Barbossa and the mysterious Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) are also up to no good. But never fear, matey: This is a Jerry Bruckheimer action flick, so everything turns up (mostly) roses. Some major characters die, disintegrate, or what have you, and others are revived. No one quite gets a perfectly happy ending, but at least Keith Richards shows up for a few minutes as Jack's hard-scrabble pirate pop. That tiny bit of perfect casting alone is worth the cost of the ticket.

Is It Any Good?

There's no denying that the billion-dollar Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is wildly entertaining. But even though AT WORLD'S END -- the series' third and ostensibly final adventure -- is more action-packed than the first two sagas, it's still overlong and bewildering. The movie has so many story developments and double-crossing betrayals that the confusing plot merits an encyclopedic fansite. Even hardcore fans of whodunit mysteries will be puzzled by the number of twists and turns.