Bluray Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
By
Brad Pipkins
Video Format: 2.35:1 1080p (AVC/MPEG-4)
Audio Formats: English Uncompressed PCM 5.1; English French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
Starring: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgard, Bill Nighy, Chow Yun Fat
Directed By: Gore Verbinski
Release Date: 12/4/07
General
After the huge success of the first film, The Curse of The Black Pearl, Disney saw fit to allow funding for not one, but two sequels. After Dead Man’s Chest proved that sequels could be just as good as the original, At World’s End showed up. While it was still a smash at the box office, people were a bit unimpressed by where the story had gone. But if you think about it, how far can you take a movie based off of a Disney theme park attraction?
At World’s End attempts to tie up all three movies into one nice package. The problem with that is there are so many alternate story lines taking place at once that it’s very hard to see exactly where things are going to end up. In fact, I’m still a bit confused by it all. The main story line here is that the heart of Davy Jones is now in the possession of the British Navy, who plan to use it as a bargaining tool. With Davy Jones and crew at their disposal, they plan to wipe out the pirates for good.
The movie has a lot of plot problems, and if you haven’t seen the first two, don’t bother seeing this one until you have. Also, it’s certainly not as friendly as the first two films, so if you have kids around, you may want to screen this one first before showing it for family movie night.
Tech Specs
Video:
*Please note: The back of the case states the movie was encoded at 1080i only. It has been confirmed by Disney that this is indeed a misprint and the movie was encoded at 1080p/24.
Disney rarely disappoints when it comes to their Bluray transfers, and At World’s End is certainly no exception. Those familiar with the other two Pirates movies should know going in that the majority of this film takes place at night. Don’t expect crazy colors that leap off of the screen. The colors here are cast over with blues and greens to give it that nighttime feel. With that said however, this is one sharp looking transfer. Even during night time scenes, details in shadows come through with out a problem. The few daytime scenes look awesome as well, but don’t expect to be wowed by At World’s end like you were the first time you popped Dead Man’s Chest into your player.
Audio:
As expected, Disney shines with their support for PCM audio. Like the previous movies, this one is also 48 KHz/24-bit, which is higher than most other studios and is a pleasant surprise for movie buffs. Everything about the audio track just begs to be played loud. From the roaring ocean waves to the Maelstrom Battle, this is one screaming audio track. Dialogue was crystal clear through out, though that didn’t help me understand Chow Yun Fat’s accent any better. The low end can be throwing cannon fire at you one second and hitting you with waves at the next. With that said, it’s not as impressive as Dead Man’s Chest in terms of audio. It still does the movie justice, but it almost seems toned down in comparison to the first two films.
Extras
As with the past two Pirates movies, At World’s End gets the special edition treatment. The feature film disc contains outtakes (in HD), while the second disc contains all the other features. Majority of them are in HD, but some SD material does crop up from time to time. Other than the blooper reel and the look into creating the multiple Jack Sparrows, I found a lot of these to be incredibly boring. To each their own, I suppose.
Menus/Navigation
Menus this time around don’t feature much of the talking skull, but it more than makes up for it and lets you get right into the menu instead of waiting for dialogue to finish. Once there, it’s pretty straight forward and easy to navigate.
Overall Impressions
If you’re a Pirates fan, you probably don’t even need to read this review. You’ll pick up the movie no matter what. For those that casually enjoy these movies, At World’s End may be more of a rental. It had many great ideas and some awesome sequences, but it started off too slow and parts of the movie needed some quicker pacing. In all honesty, three hours may be too much time for things to play out. Cutting it down to a more manageable length, even two and a half hours, could’ve resulted in something more spectacular. Let’s see what they do with Pirates 4…
Maybe it was from working on the boat?
Linear Mode
