Damn, my third review of a third movie in a trilogy (
Shrek the Third and
Ocean's Thirteen) all in the same day, talk about overload. Nevertheless, I push on as I am now convinced that if I had to rank these three films
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End would probably come out on top. The biggest problem with this past summer was the overload of films, each one trying to top the other and audience expectations were through the roof. No film could live up to that kind of expectation, and Lord knows
Pirates was probably the most anticipated of the bunch. Luckily we have DVD to relive it.
To start off, I loved Curse of the Black Pearl and was entertained by the second film, but I wasn't enamored with it. Dead Man's Chest was all spectacle and very little actual story. At World's End I would call a happy medium between the first film and the second. Whereas the first film had the task of introducing us to this fantastic group of characters the following films simply had to create a new story for them to inhabit. The second film had a rough go at it, but varying locales and the need to sum it all up makes At World's End the second best film in the franchise, even though I didn't feel that way after first seeing it in theaters.
On top of dutifully leaving the first disc of this special edition to the feature only along with a short blooper reel you get about the best picture quality you are going to get on a DVD. Disney, once again, didn't include a DTS audio track either, which they did do on Curse of the Black Pearl, but not on Dead Man's Chest. Due to the length of At World's End this is probably in the best interest of picture quality as the more space that is taken up by high-quality audio the less impressive the video becomes.
The second disc is where you will find your goodies including a feature on the making of the massive Maelstrom scene that ends the film, a feature on the multiple Jack Sparrows found in Davy Jones' locker, a featurette centered on the casting of Keith Richards and some deleted scenes with optional commentary by director Gore Verbinski. Luckily Gore doesn't have an audio commentary, because if it was anything like his monotone speeches given on these two deleted scenes it would have been the ultimate snoozer, he was obviously reading off a sheet of paper.
The next batch of features include a surprisingly interesting look at the casting of Chow Yun Fat, an equally interesting look at the score created by Hans Zimmer and yet one more interesting and interactive look at where the trinkets of the Brethren Court came from. Finally there is a throwaway look at the story behind the song "Hoist the Colours" played at the beginning of the film.
Quite simply, before watching this film again on DVD I didn't think I liked it that much; in fact, sitting comfortably at home on your couch is a much nicer way to watch a two hour and 49 minute movie. Go figure.
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