BEIJING, May 24 (Xinhuanet) -- The critics will criticize it for being too long (almost three hours) and frivilous, but the fans will come when "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" opens Thursday in theaters across America.

    The movie begins with Elizabeth (Keira Knightley), Will (Orlando Bloom) and Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) arriving in Singapore to recruit and introduce the episode's major new character, Chinese pirate Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat), to aid in their fight against the evil Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander).

    What follows is a sea cruise off the edge of the world and into Davy Jones' locker to bring back the recently deceased (see "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest") Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from the dead so he can attend a gathering of the nine pirate captains.

    The flick ends with a 45-minute action sequence in which the united pirates battle the combined forces of Beckett and the tentacle-faced Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) on his Flying Dutchman in the middle of a Pacific maelstrom.

    As all this plays out, it's impossible not to be enthralled by the movie's sheer visual panache: It's a true epic, with scale, imaginative compositions, exhilarating effects.

    Despite its comedic roots, the trilogy takes itself relatively seriously and constantly asks us to feel anxiety about the fate of its heroes. Yet it keeps bringing them back from the dead. So, who cares?

    Meanwhile, the old characters have worn out their welcome -- including Depp's comical Sparrow -- and the new characters lack character.

    The overall experience is a strange blend of visceral excitement and utter tedium. There's constantly something to look at, but the film fails to engage us or let us lose ourselves in its story.

    (Agencies)