In honor of the new film "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" I feel it is time to look back on one of the films in the franchise that was very poorly received. "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" is a film that received heavy criticism during its release back in 2007. I even heavily criticized it after first seeing it. However, with the benefit of time and the ability to examine the newer films in the franchise, I can say that "At World's End" really isn't that bad of a film. The "Pirates" franchise has had a bit of a bumpy ride when it comes to critical success. Despite this I feel that some of the films in the franchise (mainly "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest") were unfairly judged and deserve a reexamination.

Let's get one thing straight before we begin, "At World's End" is a heavily flawed film. The biggest problems in the film are the length and the amount of content stuffed into the film. The film's run time comes close to three hours and the main reason for that is the amount of stuff they shoved into the film. The film features lengthy sequences of pirate courts, exposition dumps, and way too many character arcs and subplots to fit into what, at the time, was expected to be the final "Pirates" film. It suffered from the same problem that most third films in trilogies face; due to the film, supposedly, being the last one in the series, the creative team tries to shove as many ideas and plot threads as possible to make the "end" feel epic and important. That having been said, the film is not without merit.

If there is one thing I can credit this creative team for, it's the sheer level of creativity present in the film. "At World's End" is the most bizarre of the "Pirates" films (which makes me wonder why they called the fourth one "On Stranger Tides"). Any sequence involving Davy Jones' Locker in the film is surrealist and borderline experimental. This is a film that features rock crabs carrying a pirate ship across the desert and a ship returning from Davy Jones' Locker by flipping it upside down in the water. Whatever your opinion on of this film is, you can't deny that it is at least a fascinating to see what the creative team came up with and question what they were smoking when they came up with it.

Another positive aspect of the film are it's visuals. The CGI on Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and his crew is better than ever, however what really grabbed my attention was the cinematography. The director Gore Verbinski, who directed the first three films, has a real attention to detail when it comes to the visuals and he knows how to create memorable locations. One of my favorite shots in the film is when a small pirate ship is sailing across the ocean at night. However, the sea is still and calm, so it reflects the stars in the sky. This almost creates the illusion of the ship sailing through space if it weren't for the subtle ripples in the water caused by the ship. Verbinski also knows how to film elaborate and memorable action sequences, such as the entertaining ship fight in the maelstrom from this film or the windmill scene from "Dead Man's Chest". These are qualities I found sorely missing in the fourth film.

At the time of this article, I haven't seen "Dead Men Tell No Tales" yet, I feel that "On Stranger Tides" is the worst film in the "Pirates" franchise. The film is poorly paced, poorly written, and it the run time comes close to three hours for no apparent reason. The film has a massive sequence involving a mutiny that doesn't really go anywhere. The film stops dead with a scene involving Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and Blackbeard (Ian McShane) playing a game with pistols that goes on way to long and feels like it was only done to pad the run time. "On Stranger Tides" was also the first film in the series that wasn't directed by Gore Verbinski and it shows. All of the action scenes in the fourth film feel slowly paced and lacked the level of creativity found in the previous films. After "At World's End" made it clear that it was supposed to be the end of the series, the fourth one just feels like a pointless and naked cash grab by the studio. After watching "On Stranger Tides", I found a new appreciation for "At World's End".

I am not saying "At World's End" is a good film, but I will say that it is a decent one that I was able to pull a lot of entertainment and fun from. The film did a fine job capping the trilogy (back when it was a trilogy) and even though it juggled too many plot threads I still found those plot threads interesting enough to keep me engaged. All the actors/actresses put real effort into their characters, such as Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, and especially Geoffrey Rush and Chow Yun-Fat. The film also contains the best soundtrack of all the "Pirates" films. This film is far from perfect, but I don't think it deserves the treatment it receives and it certainly does not deserve to be considered one of the worst in the series. I hope I was able to show you some of the hidden gems the film was able to offer and that you can see them before a pirate snatches them away (I know that was lame but I had to work a pirate themed analogy in there somewhere; that's the unspoken law of the internet).