However ridiculous it is as a franchise, can we all agree that it is somewhat delightful that a mincing one-off outlasted the purported and bland hero and heroine of the original Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and that the series has now become a showcase for exceedingly talented actors to have an enormous amount of silly fun? I mean, come on, how drunk do you think Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and Ian McShane got while making this move (I leave Penelope Cruz out only because she was pregnant for much of filming. I'm sure she can put it away with the best of them):
I also think it's legitimately and seriously interesting how the British Empire has slowly become more and more important to the series, to the extent that Jack's now in London. As anyone who has read the terrific Republic of Pirates knows, the buccaneers lost, so that encroachment is both fitting and historically accurate. I'd be curious to see if the series ends with a truce, or a piratical withdrawal from the scene. Such a denouement would be emotionally appropriate, I think: Jack Sparrow's always been a little doomed, not really of this world even before he came back from the dead.