The first movie of this franchise, "Curse Of The Black Pearl", is a light-hearted adventure romp showcasing the weirdness of Johnny Depp's inimitable Jack Sparrow... pardon, Captain Jack Sparrow... and a cast of zany pirates. In the best tradition of "Star Wars" and "The Matrix", it's a self-contained story from beginning to end because no one knew at the time that it would grow wings and take flight into the skies of ultra-popularity. And much like the original "Star Wars" from 1977 before "Episode IV: A New Hope" was retconned into the title, it's not a movie that anyone should take very seriously. Yes, I'm actually saying that "Star Wars" shouldn't be taken seriously, but that's a topic for another time. "The Matrix", on the other hand, is full of so much pretense and self-importance, it might as well be holding up a sign that says "Take me seriously! Please!"

But "Pirates" is special. It doesn't waste my time with vaunted mythology or an overly self-important narrative.

Oh.

Wait.

The sequels.

Enter "Dead Man's Chest", an often visually exhausting film that seems to suffer from an identity crisis. Is this a tongue-in-cheek continuation of the wacky adventures of our beloved pirate captain and his zany crew? Or is it a dark narrative of desperate times filled with tragedy and rampaging emotions? The answer would appear to be: Both. And here's where the second installment goes awry. After watching the first film, this one appears to veer off course and ram bow first into a reef at the very beginning. We've got an empty wedding gathering under dreary skies and a downpour of rain. A bride sitting alone on her wedding day. One of our heroes from the previous movie in shackles, arrested for crimes against King and country. Lord Cutler Beckett immediately presents himself as a no-nonsense villain who takes himself more seriously than he should. In contrast, Hector Barbossa is a caricature of a pirate villain, often chewing up so much scenery as to leave little of his ship left for a classic broadsides engagement. People like to talk about chewing scenery like it's a bad thing, but I think this is an example of scenery chewing in the positive. Geoffrey Rush is a skilled actor, deftly plying his craft and pouring on his "badass pirate" thing as heavily as an anchor weighed in the depths. That's his character. It's who Barbossa is. He's as over the top as Jack Sparrow, and that's what makes him work. Geoffrey Rush also has a talent for taking otherwise awful dialogue and making it good. This is the tongue-in-cheek spirit of the first movie.

Yet the tone of "Dead Man's Chest" constantly flips back and forth between serious drama and slapstick comedy. Let's follow the narrative. The beginning scenes spell "dark drama" with a vengeance, featuring the already-mentioned wedding, introduction of the villain, and Jack escaping from a prison where people are being brutally tortured. Why does all of this have to be so dark? Then Will Turner tracks down Jack, and we're treated to an often slapstick escape from the cannibals in the best tradition of the first film. When we meet Davy Jones, we're thrust back into dark, serious drama. This film constantly jerks me back and forth between what it should be and... something else. And so it continues with more dark drama as Will is held aboard the Flying Dutchman, bizarre comedy on Isla Cruces, a bleak struggle against the kraken, and it ends with one of the most head-scratching betrayals I've ever seen. I understand what the betrayal is trying to accomplish (Elizabeth is becoming a treacherous pirate while Jack is growing a pair). Was it done well? I'm not sure.

Going into the third installment, "At World's End", the tone is almost consistently serious drama with an occasional moment or two of slapstick that appear to be just a nod to the franchise's first film. I found this movie to be more consistent than the previous, but it's consistently dark and self-important. So when did a tongue-in-cheek pirate adventure become "The Tragedy Of Davy Jones"? That's what I would call the duology that the second and third film comprise. The mythology of Davy Jones and Calypso, as weakly fleshed out as it is here, is enough for an entire movie by itself. I think one of this missteps here was combining it with the light-hearted tone of the first movie, not to mention all of the comedic slapstick that appears to be just along for the ride. Now I'm not saying that drama is necessarily a bad thing. I'm saying it's a bad thing here. "The Tragedy Of Davy Jones" works on a dramatic level. A tale of love lost, a man who became a monster, a goddess of the sea (or whatever Calypso is) bound in human form out of a man's scorn and hatred, and a tale of honorable Will Turner who defeats the monster and sets right what went awry. That works as a serious drama by itself. It doesn't need to be mashed up against the crazy antics of Jack Sparrow and other caricatures that made the first film work. The escape from the cannibals and almost everything that happens on Isla Cruces stand in stark contrast to scenes where Jones is on screen.

In my humble opinion, I think Jones needed to have something to do that's funny. Some kind of shtick. Almost every time he's on screen, especially during the second film, the tone comes across as too serious for its own good. Maybe I've missed some kind of subtle message here, but all of that seriousness seems out of place in a "Pirates Of The Caribbean" movie. Now the fourth film, "On Stranger Tides", does a good job of recapturing the spirit of the first one. Another stand-alone, it lets Jack Sparrow do what Jack Sparrow does, it lets Barbossa do what he does, and the narrative rarely becomes gaudily self-important.

I think what happened here is the same thing that happened with "Star Wars" and "The Matrix". After the first film's resounding success, the director/producers/writers suddenly have some credibility, they let it go to their heads, and they take things a bit too far in directions they shouldn't have gone. I think that's a fair lesson for us all to learn from.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

PS - And I didn't even mention how the second and third films jump way overboard with a game of betrayals and bargains thicker than Blackbeard's beard. Half way through the third film I gave up on trying to decipher or keep up with who's on who's side and for what reasons.

Yeah. The backstabbing went waaay out of control. XD But then again, they are pirates (or at least that's how I tried to reason it))

At World's End was so scattered that I could barely follow the plot.