The world of the pirate is coming to an end. With the unstoppable ghost ship The Flying Dutchman and her malevolent captain Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) under his control, East India Company entrepreneur Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) has the fate of the High Seas under his thumbprint. None can stop him, business is booming and those who stand against him will meet their end sooner than they probably think.

But Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and back from dead Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) think otherwise. They will convene the Nine Lords of the Brethren Pirate Court, in doing so hopefully convince them all to stand together as one and take back the ocean’s for every man and himself.

Only problem, one of the nine is missing. With the calculating aid of Chinese pirate Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat) and the guidance of the mysterious Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris), this team of non-trusting companions must travel to World’s End deep inside Davy Jones’ Locker and save the one pirate who might just be the best – or the worst – of them all from a limbo fate far worse than death.

The only thing is, all have them have tried to kill Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), one of them even succeeded, and while he’s happy to have the Black Pearl back he’s not at all certain he’s up for taking part in their little war. With the Dutchman closing and Beckett ready to pounce, the erstwhile freelance scoundrel now must become the one thing he’s always turned and ran away from becoming: A hero.

There is a lot going on in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Thankfully, unlike the fantastically boring (and even more fantastically popular) Dead Man’s Chest this one doesn’t run in circles and instead has a unique and engaging storyline that constantly involving. Unthankfully, very much like last summer’s disappointingly uneven second feature this one is equally as butt-numbing, the almost three-hour running time enough to put even the most exuberant trilogy fanatic into a sleepy-headed bleary-eyed stupor.

Too bad, really, because I was almost ready to give this concluding chapter to the trilogy a chance. It’s certainly better than the muddled and highly forgettable part two, and there are more than a few moments of sheer unadulterated brilliance to make even the most ardent hater of the Pirates franchise rethink themselves. Heck, a sequence on a snow-white sandy desert plain populated by about thirty Depps and a derelict Black Pearl is about as brilliant a vignette as I’ve seen this year, while a final maelstrom clash between the trilogy’s two great pirate ship is as visually audacious as one could ever hope it to be.

It is unfortunately not near enough, however. Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio’s script is so convoluted and all over the place at times it’s almost impossible to know which way is up or where the heck is down. There are double-crosses, triple-crosses and, just in case you didn’t think sides could change again, even a few quadruple crosses. Fascinating characters like Sao Feng are quickly introduced and then just as quickly forgotten, while Nighy, the best part of Dead Man’s Chest, is so ill-used this time he might as well as not even have come along for the ride.

The big problem here is director Gore Verbinski. It is almost as if his massive success on the first two has given him personal license to indulge in every single whim and idiosyncrasy the filmmaker could ever imagine. Sure the film is edgier and darker then the others, but it is also bizarrely formulaic and obnoxiously self-indulgent. The whole film is filled with more. More explosions. More effects. More turmoil. More homage to the theme park ride. More. More More. More.

It gets to be annoying, and even though I didn’t hate this one I still can’t say it floated my boat at all, either. On the plus side, the movie does offer a somewhat pleasant resolution to the conflicts and the questions started in The Curse of the Black Pearl and continued in Dead Man’s Chest. It also has enough original quirks that I can’t say it was a total loss. More, of May’s big Part Three’s (Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third) this is the first one I didn’t feel burned by, and considering my temperament after the second one that almost makes At World’s End worth an “Arrrrrr!” or two all on its own.

Film Rating:  êê1/2  (out of 4)