Celluloid Heroes

A seemingly never-ending line of dirt-encrusted men, women and at least one child prepare to be hanged in the gallows, all to appease Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) and his war on the pirates. As they march endlessly towards their doom, a cryer announces that item after item is suspended. No longer can people gather, demonstrate or even have lawyers. Instead, they can just die.

Then, a young lad, clutching a piece of eight, begins to softly sing. The song is gradually picked up by each of the others in line behind him, until it seems that everyone is singing the haunting song. This seems to do nothing more than infuriate Beckett.

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho,
thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.

The king and his men
stole the queen from her bed
and bound her in her Bones.
The seas be ours
and by the powers
where we will well roam.

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never say we die.

Some men have died
and some are alive
and others sail on the sea
– with the keys to the cage...
and the Devil to pay
we lay to Fiddler's Green!

The bell has been raised
from it's watery grave...
Do you hear it's sepulchral tone?
We are a call to all,
pay head the squall
and turn your sail toward home!

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never say we die.

We then pick up on the latest installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean somewhere after Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest completed, with Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) are in Singapore to get some help on their mission to rescue Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from Davy Jones' Locker.

Unfortunately, that requires them to infiltrate the lair of Captain Sao Feng (Yun-Fat Chow), one of the nine pirate lords, especially known for his cruelty, in order to beg his help - or at least one of his ships and a crew. When they get there, they find that he's already thwarted their plans by capturing Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), who had planned on stealing the maps to make their journey easier. That would be bad.

Luckily, Gibbs (Kevin McNally) and the men were already in the process of sneaking in as well, so when things were just about to go from bad to really bad, Barbossa and Elizabeth at least had swords to work with. Unfortunately, that's when the East India Company chose to burst in on the proceedings as well.

The resulting chaos permits Will to break free, and the cover allows him to make a deal that will give him the ability to save his father, still imprisoned aboard the Flying Dutchman. At least, that's the intention. But it's not exactly an honorable deal. In the meantime, Barbossa, Elizabeth and Sao Feng come to an arrangement come to an arrangement for a ship and a crew that will allow them to rescue Jack, so the adventure begins.

After sailing for some time, it's becoming apparent that Barbossa is nearly as insane as Jack appears to be, for it looks like he's readying to sail the ship right off the edge of the world (this was a different time, when the world was flat, remember), and though everyone tries to turn it around, they don't quite make it, plunging off a massive waterfall and towards oblivion.

All of this happens in the first half-hour of the epic, which is nearly three hours in length. So as you can imagine, it's going to be a long ride. This may be worsened by the fact that there has been, as yet, no Jack Sparrow. That's about to change.

We see Jack on the Black Pearl, in the middle of the desert. This is, apparently, Davy Jone's Locker. It's a sort of maddening Limbo, because Jack isn't alone. Rather, he is alone, because no one else is there, but there isn't just one of him. That is to say that he is there in several incarnations, and he doesn't get along with all of these versions of himself. At least two of the dozen or so Jacks die rather quickly, killed by, well, Jack.

Then he loses it - yes, even more - and jumps off the ship into the sand, here he throws a rock, which turns into a crab (a nice bit of CGI), and that in turn becomes thousands of crabs. Those crabs come at the Pearl, and suddenly, it starts moving, borne ahead by a wave of crabs, so Jack struggles to get on board, and he does, just in time. Then the rest of the gang, who has crashed on shore, sees the Pearl cresting a dune, with Jack at the helm. It's rather surreal.

So much so, in fact, that Jack doesn't believe it. He thinks that his hallucinations have reached a new level, and that he's seeing other people now, in addition to himself. When he finally decides that the people there are indeed real people, he isn't so sure that he wants to take them back - they did, after all try to kill him (and one succeeded). But of course, they decide to head back, or else the movie would be over early.

On the way back, they encounter the dead by the thousands, floating over and under the water. They are apparently those that Jones is supposed to ferry to the underworld. Instead, he's imprisoned them here, and that's what makes him into the hideous beast that he is. One surprise guest is Elizabeth's father, and it seems that he's been tricked into his own death, which doesn't make her particularly happy.

The next day, as water is running dry, everyone is trying to figure out how they are going to get back, when it is none other than Jack sitting with the map and he figures out that "up is down" means that the ship needs to sail upside down - that is, under water - and so everyone starts frantically running back and forth to flip the ship upside-down. They do, and just in the nick of time, they see the green flash at sunset, which flips them back rightside-up, and they get back to the world of the living. Problem solved.

Now they have to get some fresh water, and as they do, they are met by Beckett and Sao Feng, who takes Elizabeth as his prize. Those pirates - they are always double-crossing someone. So much for the plan. Unfortunately, The East India Company sets upon Sao Feng, and Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and the Flying Dutchman make quick work of the ship, killing Sao Feng in the process. As he is dying, he leaves Elizabeth as captain of the ship.

After a brief interlude where we see that Admiral Norrington (Jack Davenport), who is currently in charge of the Flying Dutchman, still loves Elizabeth, and helps her escape, we also see him die for his transgression. Strangely, they don't go after Elizabeth and the ship, however. One of the oddities about the movie - surely they could have just turned around and captured them again?

Meanwhile, it is Beckett that has to deal with Jack, and they strike a deal whereby Jack will lead Beckett to the Pirate Court. Yet as he leaves, Jack manages to fire a cannon, which knocks out the mast of Beckett's ship, giving him a nice head start to Shipwreck Cove, the location of the Pirate Court. There, we meet Captain Teague (Keith Richards), who is none other than Jack's father.

He brings some order - such as there can be - to the court, and declares that only the Pirate King can declare war, and since there is no Pirate King, there can be no war. Jack thinks that war is the way to go, so he asks for a vote for king - yet since every pirate always votes for themselves, it is unlikely to produce a king. Jack, as usual, has something up his sleeve, and he casts his vote for Elizabeth, making her the Pirate King, and she does what she wanted to do all along - she declares war.

The next day, after a brief parlay because of the size of the East India Company fleet, the ships prepare for war. Just before they get there, Barbossa shows that he has a bit of double-crossing of his own. He has managed to collect the nine pieces of eight - actually nine pieces of junk, since the pirates never had any money - and he uses them to free the Sea Goddess Calypso from her human body (that of seer Tia Dalma), which he believes will help them fight Davy Jones.

Unfortunately, it seems that Calypso doesn't really like much of anyone - that's the reason that they imprisoned her in the human body in the first place. But Barbossa has a secret. He knows that it was Jones himself who suggested that they imprison her in the human body, and he tells her that as they are freeing her, so hopefully she will fight on their side. As she is freed, she grows into a super-sized seer, turns into crabs, and disappears overboard. Then it seems that there is nothing. Ah well.

Suddenly, the skies turn dark, and a massive maelstrom forms in the sea. The huge whirlpool threatens any ship that gets near it, and the Black Pearl, leading the charge of pirates, takes on the Flying Dutchman, leading the East India Company. What ensues can only be described as epic. The two ships battle for what seems to be hours, but in reality is probably 45 minutes. It's impressive. There are loads of computer-generated effects. People die. Will and Elizabeth are married on deck by Barbossa during the fight. It may make you forget the mess that is the first two hours or so. But it's still just a big battle.

Ultimately, Davy Jones loses, but before he does, he kills Will and Jack, who has been contemplating taking the heart of Jones himself, has a choice to make. Does he take immortality for himself - the selfish choice - or does he let it go to save his friend? He does what you may not expect and he helps Will stab the heart of Jones, which saves his life, while at the same time it loses it, because it means he must captain the Dutchman forever. But it's better than being dead, isn't it?

After this, the battle is effectively over. Strange, really, as the pirates are still vastly outnumbered. The Dutchman slips back under the water, then comes back as good as new with a new captain, which is fine. But then the Dutchman and the Pearl line up on either side of the Endeavor (Beckett's ship) and blow it to pieces. This is another impressive piece of effects. But that appears to be it. The huge number of ships left just run? I think that's unlikely. Just the large number of guns on the Endeavor could have decimated the Pearl. The pirates were way outnumbered. It wouldn't have been the "happy" ending, but it's still a bit odd.

Afterwards, we see Elizabeth spend her one day with Will, and then he will have to be at sea for ten years, ferrying souls to the afterworld. Then he will be able to come back for another day in ten years. We see Jack ashore at a dock, and Gibbs asleep on the dock, and Barbossa has taken off in the Pearl, but Jack is the one with the map, leading to the Fountain of Youth, so that may be the next sequel (if there is one).

If you sit through the credits (about 8 minutes of them), you will be treated to a short scene where Elizabeth stands on a bluff with her son, ten years later, and they see the green flash, followed by a boat coming in from sea - presumably the Dutchman.

The Bottom Line: The first one was the best. The second one wasn't very good. This one was better than the second one, and the introduction was simply haunting. But then it just went on and on and on. If they make a fourth, I'll likely see it, but I hope it's about an hour shorter. It doesn't have to be lengthy to be good. The one good thing is we went to an 8:45am showing on a Saturday, and there were about 15 people there. That was awesome.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action/adventure violence and some frightening images.

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