At the end of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:DEAD MAN'S CHEST Captain Jack Sparrow was lost in Davey Jones's fabled locker and a bedraggled bunch of outlaws has banded together to go in search of him. For this, they need a ship and go to Singapore to get one, and the charts that show the way to this otherworldly realm. The Pirate Lord of that region (Chow Yun Fat) isn't exactly pleased about this, but a surprise visit by the East India Company send them on their way. In the locker, Jack is pretty much going insane, not only seeing himself and talking to himself, but also killing himself and talking to rocks. The rocks becomes crabs and take him to his rescuers.

Once Jack is free of the locker, he is able to join a gathering of the 9 Pirate Lords where Elizabeth Swann, the newest of their number becomes the Pirate King and declares war on the armada of the East India Company. Captain Barbossa wants to release the sea goddess Calypso to destroy Davy Jones, but all she does is set up a final battle between Jones's Flying Dutchman and Sparrow's Black Pearl on the edge of an enormous maelstrom.

This is far from being the car wreck of a sequel that its predecessor was, mainly thanks to the fact that it's the final chapter of the trilogy and so a few things get resolved, sometimes in surprising ways. It is still, however, light years away from the illustrious first of the trilogy. Like DEAD MAN'S CHEST this film has none of the charm and lightness that made Captain Jack Sparrow's first appearance such a delight. The plot meanders all over the place and could easily have had an hour cut out of its pretty long running time without too much worry. The whole segment in Singapore is laboured and padded on behalf of guest star Chow Yun Fat. Getting a ship and a chart could have been achieved much more quickly with a tighter screenplay. After that, there's nigh on an hour of people betraying and double betraying each other until it's hard to tell who's been doing what to whom. The whole 'Free Calypso'/'Calypso loves Davey Jones' storyline also just seems to get jettisoned when the final battle is set up.

It is the showdown between Jack's ship and the Flying Dutchman where film finally comes good with some cracking action, plot strands resolved and some surprising developments. The love strand between Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann comes to a particularly satisfying end that almost, but not quite, justifies all that we've had to sit through to get to it.

There's also some intriguing stuff going on earlier, such as Jack's imprisonment in Davey Jones's locker, which is just plain bizarre and seems to have come from another film altogether.

The final chapter is a story of redemption. Everyone is looking for it, it seems. Elizabeth wants forgiveness for killing Jack, Davey Jones wants redemption for betraying his lover and abandoning his post, Calypso needs redemption for not showing up when Davey needed her and Captain Jack needs redemption from being Captain Jack. Even Captain, now Admiral Norrington wants redemption for siding with the East India Company. Everyone else ought to be looking for redemption for being so ugly. Is it really necessary that every character has bad teeth and never washes?

If you've never seen PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, the film that started it all, then you've missed a treat. If you haven't seen PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:DEAD MAN'S CHEST, then leave it there. If you've seen both of those then PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN AT WORLD'S END provides closure, but in ten years it will be only the first film that will be remembered.