Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: *** out of ****

An elaborate sea opera overstuffed with spectacle, speed and symbolism

"At World's End" closes the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy with sound, fury, ego, and showmanship. After the swishy, crafty "Curse of the Black Pearl" and "Dead Man's Chest" - an idiot's playground, complete with Ferris wheel and whooping cannibals - we get the elaborate sea opera, its flags flown in postmodernist colors. There hasn't been a crab this overstuffed with spectacle, speed and symbolism since the "Lord of Rings" ended about ten times.

Surprisingly dark, "At World's End" is not a funny movie. And it's not an actor's movie. Like "Dead Man's Chest," it belongs to screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and director Gore Verbinski. But "At World's End" is their master's thesis, if you will, their idea of unleashing the hounds after yanking the chain of collective audiences last summer.

Here, the last act has a legitimate payoff, pointless characters at least meet quick, useful deaths, and action largely returns to the sea. "At World's End" manages a surprising, bittersweet conclusion to the romance of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and a clever teaming of Capt. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and Capt. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). The villains - Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) - flower into full menaces.

Yes, the plot brings the literal viewer to the altar of analysis paralysis. And most critics, prone to punishing Hollywood excess as an act of martyrdom, have done their best to fake confusion. As if the last hour "Half Nelson" is coherent or realistic. But the chess maneuvers are part of the pirate life. The screenwriters trust the audience to watch with their gut, side with certain characters, and have their wishes duly fulfilled.

After a prologue that shows the East India Trading Company wiping piracy off the earth with wanton, mass executions, the movie shifts to Singapore in a set piece that would have made Steven Spielberg proud. Seems Barbossa, Elizabeth and Will are after maps from pirate lord Sao Feng (Chow-Yun Fat) to the end of the world, where Jack can be retrieved from Davy Jones' Locker.

The scenes at the Locker, and the journey to and from it, is inventive, excellent filmmaking. The best stretch in any of the "Pirates" films. It's magical, modern, Freudian, and cool. Jack's inner demons in the Locker are cleverly realized, as is the way back from the underworld. And once the crew is back, the filmmakers have just the right visual punch line for the return.

There's still two more hours of plot to tow, and while "At World's End" drags its audience through unnecessary twists and development - chiefly involving the Sea Goddess Calypso and the mysterious voodoo priestess Tia Dalma - it eventually clears the stage for an elaborate finale - a battle between the Black Pearl and Jones' ship, the Flying Dutchman.

Because the movie's so proud of its huge canvas, it can and should explain itself. In a way, it renders many of the characters poker-faced, especially Will, whose motivations have been unclear for nearly two films. Bloom's effective precisely because he doesn't fight it. Knightley, a sunken-eyed, plucky waif, again has to tackle the adventurous, physically inclined Elizabeth. Rush actually generates the movie's most adult humor with Barbossa. Nighy, buried under the octopus mask, is one mean animorph as Davy Jones.

Depp has created a kind of icon with Jack Sparrow, and he invited his inspiration for the role, Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards, to play his dad. Unless he's trying on Brando as a mumbling, addled keeper of the pirate code, Richards' performance illuminates just how little Depp borrowed from the man, and how much more Charlie Chaplin and Monty Python is in the performance. The character has worn on us in a way that we look for flaws, but in reality this is his best work in the trilogy, given the various faces he has to put on.

That analysis somewhat translates to the movie itself. It's easy to be jaded for the sake of it, to bemoan the existence of "At World's End" because 25 Alfonso Cuaron and Pedro Almodovar movies could have been made in its stead. The impulse is to deride it for what it can't possibly be: New.

But the blockbuster sequel is an inevitable staple of the movie industry. And just because film professors scoff at George Lucas' contention that popcorn pictures have carved a larger niche for smaller, more personal films, the 24-plex theaters often manage to reserve one screen for them. It might be a tiny screen, and there might be only 30 seats in the theater. But it exists nonetheless. An argument can be made that "At World's End" got some aspiring filmmaker that tiny screen.

"At World's End" is a legitimate film in its own right, anyway. Though it was made concurrently with "Dead Man's Chest," Verbinski, Rossio and Elliott have adjusted the tone, and put much more at stake than merely Jack's servitude to Jones. Though it clumsily compares the East India Trading Company to the United States' treatment of Muslims post-9/11, "At World's End" has little illusions about the origins of greed. It's a seed in just about anyone, and it's most dangerous when it's done under the guise of political legitimacy.

Compared to the childish "Spider-Man 3," that thinking is, dare it be said, a little brainy.