Box Office Movie

 Watch the Trailer

Distributor: Disney
Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush and Chow Yun-Fat
Director: Gore Verbinski
Screenwriters: Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio
Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer
Genre: Fantasy adventure
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of action/adventure violence and some frightening images
Running time: 168 min.
Release date: May 25, 2007

To understand how important Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is to Disney, its subsidiaries, shareholders and well-wishers, note that the movie’s first scene shows a lineup of bedraggled and resigned prisoners being hanged…for piracy. Sure, Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) hates piracy, especially the brand practiced by mincing troublemaker Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) since the Pirates saga began in 2003. But Disney hates piracy even more, specifically the kind that results in DVDs being hawked on New York street corners hours after a movie premieres in theatres.

But, as the third, and hopefully final, installment of the series begins, Disney’s second-quarter earnings report is not Jack’s problem. Jack’s problem is that he’s dead, killed by the fearsome Kraken at the end of Pirates 2. His supposed demise concluded a sequel that was smothered in plot, a problem that had slim chance of being alleviated here because Pirates 2 and 3 were shot simultaneously.

The story, by returning writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, is not to be passively understood but rather chased down with a net. Capturing this lumbering creature, made of shifting alliances, pirate babble and dialogue-obscuring accents, is nigh impossible. It doesn’t help that the first action sequence involves series newbie Chow Yun-Fat. He plays Sao Feng, a Chinese pirate captain in possession of a map that will lead Elizabeth (Keira Knightley), Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush, having too much fun) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) to Jack, who resides in the limbo of Davy Jones’ locker. After stealing Feng’s map, they sail over the edge of the world where Jack and his beloved Black Pearl occupy a desolate, cracked-earth eternity that Terry Gilliam might have dreamed up.

The movie’s logic isn’t built for clarity but special effects opportunities, of which there are many. In limbo, Jack and the Black Pearl are deposited into the sea by thousands of white rocks that hatch into crabs. To escape limbo, the reunited crew rocks the ship back and forth until it capsizes, which, for some reason, transports them back to the land of the living. Jack’s return could not be better timed. He was the only missing member of the Nine Lords of the Brethren Court, a collective of pirate leaders whose solidarity is the key to defeating Beckett and his multi-tentacled ally Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), who continues to command freaky fishmates on the Flying Dutchman.

The Court’s summit on Shipwreck Island (imagine a meeting between the heads of New York’s mafia crime families) includes a cameo by Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. As Captain Teague, keeper of a voluminous listing of proper pirate behavior called the Pirate’s Code, he adds nothing except a meta-nod to Depp’s inspiration for Jack’s half-drunken and slurry mannerisms. Richards makes slightly less of an impression than the feathery Bloom. His romance with Elizabeth, who manages to complete this grimy, pierced and tattooed adventure without acquiring a single smudge on her face, now feels a matter of obligation. Never has so much dialogue resulted in so little character.

And, since there are so many characters that require tending, Elliott and Rossio can’t possibly service them all satisfactorily. In Pirates 2, the mysterious witch Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris), all black lipstick and voodoo portend, was positioned for a role of future importance. In Pirates 3 she fills script needs. Davy Jones requires the softening that only a long-lost lover can provide? Give him Tia. Adventure-gorged moviegoers demand an epic battlefield for the climatic seafaring shootout? Have Tia grow 50 feet tall, turn into thousands of crabs and create an enormous whirlpool in which the ships can slug it out.

This whirlpool battle is admittedly pretty thrilling, and no matter how busy and cacophonous it gets, Verbinski never loses track of the action and even manages to compose some beautiful shots. But it’s sound effects and pixels, signifying nothing. Even Rick Heinrichs’ production design, a feast of detail in the first two movies, has become suffocating under the weight of unlimited funds. Comparatively, every scene on an empty beach feels like a vacation.

The arc of the Pirates trilogy resembles that of The Matrix series, where the success of a stand-alone movie gives way to lumbering, confusing sequels where the taint of inevitability is overcompensated for with lethal doses of plot. Depp, the main reason there’s a trilogy to speak of, has little to do in the finale other than remind us of the risk he took in making Jack a prancing, pickled, high-seas comedian. Indeed, the movie isn’t even satisfied with one Jack. We now have numerous Jacks who pop up in desperately oddball sequences where he hallucinates multiples of himself.

But give Depp a treasure chest worth of credit. He took a project that smacked of greed—a Disney movie based on a Disney theme park ride—and provided an unexpected, lighthearted and supremely welcome streak of anarchy. The tragedy is, the last two films are exactly what we feared the first one would be: corporate entertainment, heavy yet frivolous, trying to buy our love with bloated spectacle.

 Watch The Thriller

Starring Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Parker Posey, Frank Langella and Sam Huntington. Directed by Bryan Singer. Written by Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris. Produced by Jon Peters, Bryan Singer and Gilbert Adler. A Warner Bros. release. Sci-fi action/adventure. Rated PG-13 for some intense action violence. Running time: 154 min

For the second time in as many years, Warner Bros. has breathed new life into a tired superhero franchise by attaching an edgy director with independent roots and casting a non-marquee name in the titular role. Although "Batman" had gone on an eight-year hiatus after the clownish stunt-casting in "Batman & Robin," the delay in the follow-up to the "Superman" series is going on 20 years. But, whereas the studio’s "Batman Begins" reinvigorated the property by reinventing it, "Superman Returns" is a "spiritual descendent" of "Superman: The Movie" and its sequel, paying playful homage to its predecessors with retro opening credits, clever reenactments of small moments and, in one key scene involving a toy train set, winking at the now-quaint special effects of the originals. The action picks up after a five-year hiatus in which Superman (Brandon Routh) has journeyed to his home planet of Krypton and back. He has discovered that there is indeed nothing left, a realization that only further alienates him from the humans he is sworn to protect and lead by example. Upon his return, however, he learns that Earth has moved on without him. "Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman" reads a Pulitzer Prize-winning op-ed by gutsy newspaper reporter—and the Man of Steel’s love interest—Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth, who eschews the silly slapstick of previous incarnations for a tough veneer masking vulnerability and hurt). Lois certainly seems to have gotten over the Metropolis Marvel: She’s engaged now to her editor’s nephew Richard White (James Marsden, of the "X-Men" series, in yet another solid turn as the foil for a woman’s affections in a superhero movie) and has a young son. Meanwhile, alter-ego Clark Kent has been traveling the world to indeterminate destinations and been apparently missed by no one other than his mother, Martha Kent (Eva Marie Saint), and Daily Planet photog Jimmy Olsen (Sam Huntington). Superman’s return throws a wrench in a plot hatched by Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey), however, to use Kryptonian crystal technology in the construction of his latest real-estate development. Backed by a crew of cronies including Kitty Kowalski (the hilariously acerbic yet conscience-stricken Parker Posey), Spacey’s Luthor, who at times remarkably resembles his predecessor in the role, Gene Hackman, retains a sophisticated wit amid criminal cunning without the camp that characterized earlier takes on the role. But it’s the casting of newcomer Routh that makes or breaks the movie, and it’s here that Bryan Singer (the first two "X-Men" movies) has struck gold. The director mines not only the actor’s physicality—with his square jaw, broad shoulders and mop of thick brown hair, Routh looks like he could have walked off the pages of a comic book—but his uncanny ability to at once channel Christopher Reeve (to whom, along with his wife Dana, the film is dedicated), and make the role his own. Routh has struck a perfect balance between the awkward humility of Clark Kent and the strength and radiant goodness of Superman while infusing just a little bit of emotional complexity—a hint of reluctance to return to the life of a superhero. If there is a departure in this rendition of the character, it’s that there’s no masquerade. It’s not that he’s not pretending to be Clark Kent by day while donning the red cape by night. It’s that he is Clark Kent, just as he is Superman, just as he is Kal-El. Per the mythology, Superman never lies. Posed with the balletic grace of a Greek god, Routh is photographed against the backdrop of Newton Thomas Sigel’s stunning cinematography ranging from the violent upheavals in the outer reaches of space to the tranquil beauty of a Kansas cornfield to the throbbing energy of the streets of Metropolis— all captured with the digital Genesis camera system. Like the Daily Planet’s art deco facade housing an ultramodern newsroom of networked computers and plasma television screens, production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas and costumes designer Louise Mingenbach have seamlessly blended contemporary and classic design elements for a timeless look. And, working from John Williams’ original theme, John Ottman has composed a commanding operatic score at its most effective when it underplays climactic moments with ethereal chorale music. (Each of these behind-the-scenes artists worked with Singer previously on the "X-Men" franchise.) All of these elements—the casting, cinematography, design and score— ultimately serve Singer’s greatest achievement, which is the storytelling. While hitting all the right notes as he guides us through the superhero narrative, the director reminds us that, as agile and elegant as Superman is, his rescues can’t always be. Real-world physics demand that passengers in a jet crash will be slammed around the cabin, and metal ripples and snaps under the strain of resistance. It’s this scene of a commercial airliner plummeting toward what looks a lot like Manhattan, along with later images of buildings exploding and a body falling, that taps into the viewer’s post-9/11 anxiety. Intended or not, such allusions at this point are unavoidable. Meanwhile, although free of the angst that plagues his Justice League colleague Batman, Superman here is dealing with complex adult themes—a romance that can’t consummate for reasons both practical and existential—and a dark edge that sees him on the receiving end of a pathetic beating. Best of all, Singer, who first came to industry attention with "The Usual Suspects," delights with small surprises throughout; goes to laborious lengths to leave expectations unfulfilled, particularly with regard to a certain pint-sized revelation; and at times, as in an epiloguic hospital scene, waggishly winks at the cliché.