Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End. (Courtesy photo)

If you haven’t already ventured into Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End, be warned that the plot is ever so slightly hard to follow. Here’s a short guide to forearm you: all the rules invented to rationalize the second Pirates movie no longer apply. Except when they do. For instance, those fish men doomed to sail on Davy Jones’s ship for eternity can now go onto other ships. Except when they can’t. They can also die like normal men. Except when they’re supernatural. Concerning death: usually it doesn’t stick. The only time death is inexorable is when the writers are fully certain the character’s narrative usefulness has run its course. Hence, everyone involved in an active plot is probably not going to die, or will not be as dead as they seem. Concerning double-crosses: everybody double-crosses everyone else, with wildly varying degrees of credibility. The doozy nestled in among all the doozies involves Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) double-crossing everyone in order to achieve the same goal they’re out to achieve—except in a different, double-crossy kind of way. I know, we haven’t even gotten to the plot description yet. Perhaps I’m stalling, because the idea makes me so sleepy.

Plastering together this trilogy that was never meant to be is the team of executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski, writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and a gaggle of drooling Disney executives. In a way, they have invented a new kind of blockbuster franchise. The sequels use the same characters, but otherwise ignore almost entirely the realities of their predecessors. No one is asking for them to knit such inanely uncrackable stories, yet they do so with glee. No one asked them to bring back the 22 most important characters—while introducing new ones. But they have, and have found a story line for all of them. Here’s the very short version of the story: Davy Jones (Bill Nighy with an octopus on his chin) and his ship, the Flying Dutchman, are now under the command of evil Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander). If the nine pirate lords don’t join forces to stop him, Beckett’s navy will bring an end to all piracy—and fun. But Jack Sparrow is one of those lords, and he died last summer. So they must journey off the edge of the world in order to find him and bring him back. There’s also some stuff involving Chinese pirate Captain Sao Feng (Yun-Fat Chow), and the ocean goddess Calypso. Let’s stop there.

A cast this massive can’t effectively be serviced, so it becomes a battle of attrition. Winners include Keira Knightley. Her Elizabeth, who bordered on irrelevance in the last film, is given the kind of authority the character demanded. Knightley does a much better job. Johnny Depp is more enjoyable, too, after giving a pale imitation of himself in Dead Man’s Chest. It doesn’t hurt that Sparrow is finally forced to take meaningful action. Other cast members who rise above the fray include Naomie Harris (28 Days Later) as the witch doctor Tia Dalma (who has a big secret you’ll probably see coming); and Nighy (Love Actually), who has a very effective moment out of makeup that makes us yearn for more. Geoffrey Rush, steamrolled by Depp in the first film, has more fun this time around as Barbossa. Not so hot: the squishy Orlando Bloom, the overwhelmed Chow Yun-Fat, and the overwrought Tom Hollander.

At World’s End is a considerable improvement over Dead Man’s Chest, though it doesn’t hurt that the second film lowered our expectations considerably. That movie turned into such a lark, there was no emotional tension to help guide us through. This time, the tone is much darker. It feels like Verbinski and team have envisioned this one as their Empire Strikes Back with a happier three endings. As absurd as this mess gets, it maintains its enthusiasm. Seldom has a genre been so exhaustively, exhilaratingly covered in such a sort amount of film. But honestly, did they have to shove three movies together? What’s wrong with a nice clean swashbuckler—some good guys, some bad guys, some treasure? Perhaps they’ll simplify things in the fourth installment, the likelihood of which they leave no doubt. The Pirates franchise has become this generation’s Star Wars, which is certainly preferable to the new Star Wars movies becoming this generation’s Star Wars. We’ll keep getting more bloated fun every few years, as long as there are pirate clichés to embrace, and Johnny Depp around to do the embracing.

Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, California, and works for the Cartoon Network. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard residents for many years.