19 Minutes

When I took POTC:At World’s End out of the sleeve I noticed the running time, 2 hours & 49 minutes. Yikes, that’s nearly three hours, may have to split watching it into two nights. Well I needn’t have worried about the running time, at 19 minutes in, I hit the eject button.

What started with a surprisingly good romp of a movie, then in the second turned into something trying too hard, by the third had turned into a pompous Mad Magazine satire of itself. It took George Lucas 22 years to screw up the Star Wars franchise, it took Gore Verbinski three short years to sink the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Forget the endless line of dirty people heading to the gallows, when 4 would have done to let us know that Lord Cutler Beckett was bad and needed his comeuppance. I could almost overlook the fact that they make Ms. Swann undress to make sure see wasn’t hiding any weapons (of which she had as many as there are clowns in a circus car) when Barbossa walks in with a long bulky coat and fluffy hat that could hide 9-pounder cannons. Why does Barbossa tell Captain Sao Feng he needs a ship, how did he get to Singapore? There are nine pieces of eight? But most incredibly, Jack’s a Pirate Lord? He’s lost his ship what seems like a half dozen times and got eaten by a giant squid!

I think tomorrow I’ll watch POTC:The Curse of the Black Pearl to cleanse my palette.