Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng

I'll try my best to avoid spoilers, but I can tell you right now that my best isn't very good.
If you haven't made the soon to be constitutionally-mandated trip to see Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean 3 yet, you may want to skip this post until you have.
I've done some informal research among the geeks at work who have seen the movie. My own opinion seems to be off, I guess. That is generally to be expected, though the way my opinion is off makes me a little uncomfortable.
Usually, my opinions of a film's shortcomings run along the lines of "not enough explosions" or "it would have been more awesome if the main character had been a ninja". A bit of trivia: That last one was my actual review of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
So what offended me about the third pirate movie?
Certainly, the duelling was amazing.
There were almost enough CGI effects and weird creatures to infest my nightmares for a suitable period of time.
To top it off, there were quite a few times when sail-powered wooden ships exploded like tanker trucks filled with jet fuel and frozen concentrated orange juice, so even that base was totally covered.
Sadly (and this confession has resulted in several opinions of me being lowered among my fellow geeks -- and geek cred takes time to build) I was upset by the ending.

This is your final spoiler warning!

How, after inflicting the boring romance between Elizabeth Swan and Will Turner upon millions of people for three freaking movies, can they end it like that?
I may be alone in this opinion. In fact, from what I can gather, I'm the only one who hated it that much and, as some have hinted, I'm a sap.
But seriously! That's the end?
I hate cliffhangers, but if that is what this is, I'll embrace it as a good one. If (and only if) they make a part four (and since people stand in line to push money at Disney for this franchise as though that money were infested with scurvy it is a possibility) I can come back, renewed, tri-cornered hat jauntily askew, stuffed pirate on my shoulder spouting microchip-embedded profanity for all to enjoy, to buy the giant tub of popcorn and enjoy it again.
If not, and the series ends like this, I have no choice but to pretend that the second and third movies never actually happened. And I liked them! It will make me sad to cram them into the already crowded denial section of my mind. But I will do it. I'll make room somehow. Perhaps by admitting that certain advertising elements of the McDonald's campaigns of the late 70's actually exist. Whoa. When I can type that without shuddering as though someone marched across my grave, maybe.
To sum up:

Pro - Sword fighting
Pro - CGI awesomeness
Pro - Explosions
Pro - Implied ninjas, expressed pirates
Pro - Almost too much Johnny Depp

Con - The freaking ending made me want to kill and kill and kill