Movies: Pirates of the Carribean, At World's End

I must admit that I'd briefly skimmed a few reviews before going to see this movie today and they were generally pretty negative so perhaps that lowered my expectations, but I did enjoy the third in the Pirate's series.

I was disappointed by the second Pirate's movie after really enjoying the first, mainly because the plot really didn't seem that interesting in the second movie. Actually, I don't recall too many standout scenes in the 2nd movie, nor that much interesting character development.

This latest movie starts out with a hanging scene where many fundamental judicial rights (fair trial for example) are suspended in the quest to rid the world of pirates. Sound familiar to anyone else?

The pirates are none too happy about this and they rally together and attempt to release an ultimate weapon upon the pursuing soldiers. Nothing really too original there, but this is only the beginning.

Many of the reviews suggested that there were too many characters and too many subplots, but this was part of the charm for me. The witty dialogue was there, Johny Depp was great as always as Jack Sparrow and Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom stepped up as a complicated couple trying make things work despite all the other distractions.

I don't think I'm giving too much away when I say that their exchange of wedding vows is one of the best I've seen in a movie and certainly one that the kids will appreciate much more than the usual long drawn-out ceremonies.

There were a couple of negatives - the movie is about 3 hours long with previews, which is perhaps 1/2 an hour too long and the ending fizzled just a little compared to the rest of the movie, but all up it was well worth seeing.

Overall: 7/10