The Only Trilogy That’s Mine

Some people have Star Wars. Some people have The Lord of the Rings. I have Pirates of the Caribbean, and I’ve made peace with that.

André, Lisa, Becca and I went to the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End last night, and I’m still processing what it feels like to watch Jack Sparrow grin his way out of the impossible for two and a half hours. A kiss here. Ten bodies there. Some spectacular nonsense involving shifting loyalties that left half the audience visibly confused. The film has real pacing problems—I won’t pretend otherwise—and the revolving alliances require a kind of sustained attention that the franchise hadn’t previously demanded. But it earns it. It earns it thoroughly.

Johnny Depp operates in a different register from everyone around him, and Jack Sparrow remains the most original blockbuster character of this era. Keira Knightley is extraordinary in this one—more authority, more steel than either of the previous films gave her. Orlando Bloom remains exactly as interesting as Orlando Bloom has ever been, which is to say not very. The dog returns. The heart returns. The ship returns. If you know, you know.

The first two films are load-bearing—too much of this depends on what came before for it to work cold. And there’s something after the credits that makes the wait worthwhile.