Movie review: Third 'Pirates' is too long and convoluted, but visually impressive and funThe Associated PressPublished: May 24, 2007NEW YORK: It's way too long and massively convoluted and ultimately just plain silly. But still, "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" is a lot of fun a lot of the time.The third movie in the freakishly successful "Pirates" franchise feels substantial and looks impressive and fulfills the hype surrounding it in a way the other thirds — Spidey and Shrek — haven't so far.Having said that, it is, of course, a giant meandering mess that leaves you feeling as if you've been tossed about on the high seas for three hours, but theoretically that's also part of the allure of these movies. Director Gore Verbinski and writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio return with even bigger helpings of special effects, including an interminable climax in which the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman battle each other in the driving rain while circling along the edge of a swirling, sucking maelstrom.And yet, within such sequences, there are enough individual "wow" moments that make you appreciate just how inventive and complicated an achievement this was. Stuff gets blown up (this is a Jerry Bruckheimer production, after all) and it looks like real stuff really getting blown up, not just digital blips that have been manipulated by hundreds of people sitting in the dark in front of computer screens. Though CGI technology clearly was used often, "At World's End" never appears fakey-cartoony, like so many of these epics often do.For better and for worse, the latest "Pirates of the Caribbean" actually resembles the Disney amusement park ride that inspired the series more than its predecessors (with traces of the "It's a Small World" ride thrown in for good measure), especially when characters are cruising through some waterway, singing some rousing yo-ho song. You're constantly aware that what you're watching is a manufactured vision of what heroes and ruffians are supposed to do and say, and yet the kid in you wants to give in, then go for a $5 (€4) cotton candy afterward