So far, this has not been a good summer for sequels. Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third have been lightweight, and now they’re joined by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. It’s not a bad movie, and will probably not disappoint diehard fans of the franchise, but others might as well wait for the inevitable DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray releases.

Pirate king Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is back, along with the lovers from the first two episodes, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) has more lines this time around, Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) perhaps fewer, and we meet an entirely new heavyweight, Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat). All are involved in a plot that is virtually impossible to decipher but that goes something like this: Will, Elizabeth, and Barbossa must rescue Jack Sparrow from Davy Jones’ locker, which is where he ended up in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. They have to round up the nine top pirates to thwart Lord Cutler Beckett’s (Tom Hollander) desire to rid the earth of all pirates.

Everyone ends up double-crossing everyone else, turning out to be something different from who they appear to be, and changing alliances with dizzying disloyalty. The result is a group of action set-pieces strung together on a chain of gibberish. Some of those action sequences do produce thrills, notably the final shoot-out between The Black Pearl and The Flying Dutchman, which, believe it or not, gives Will and Elizabeth an opportunity to get married.

Only two of the recurring characters show any signs of development in this final installment of the trilogy. Elizabeth becomes a woman of greater depth and accomplishment, and the tentacled Davy Jones turns out to have a soft spot. The rest of the cast continue to mug, much as they did in the first two films. Depp has some fun when Jack Sparrow hallucinates other Sparrows as crew members. In a scene reminiscent of a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon, one miniature Sparrow on the real Sparrow’s left urges one thing as another little Sparrow, on his right, counsels the opposite tack.

The special effects are good and bad. Realistic explosions send all sorts of timber flying through the air (this is a Jerry Bruckheimer movie), but many of the scenes involving ships at sea look downright digital, albeit good digital. Going along with the general idea that more is better, Hans Zimmer’s orchestral score endlessly and irritatingly repeats the main theme. This 168-minute film should have come in somewhere between 120 and 130 minutes.

The sound, too, is frustrating. I could understand only about 95% of the dialogue -- sound effects or music swallowed up much of the rest. Maybe that’s why the plot seemed so disjointed.

Though Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End might seem to set up a third sequel, I’d like to see a moratorium declared on this franchise. If you want more, go to Disneyland and take the ride.

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