The second and third movies in this series have scripts that feel like they were written on table napkins by a group of drunken monkeys. My assumption is that the studio was so surprised by the success of the first film that it forced director Gore Verbinski and the rest of the filmmakers to put together a plan for sequels - and fast. I've heard of studios asking for sequel scripts in as little as two weeks. So much for quality and the creative process.

And while I am no less disgusted by this film than the previous pieces of refuse, I have no doubt that this one will also go on to make a billion dollars. We are simply desperate for escapism. The more we lose ourselves in the pirate world -- and this is the only thing "Pirates 3" has going for it -- the more we feel the film has accomplished something. We forget that we're fat or poor or neglected at work or at home and for two hours and forty minutes, we imagine that we are disgusting, dirty, foul-mouthed pirates.

If I endeavor to explain the story in any detail, I'll end up with a review that needs its own ISBN. The plot is one ridiculous detail after another. There's no continuity and it all feels as if it were made up on the spot by a group of scribes whose job it was to imagine individual scenes of monumental expense that could be tacked together to approximate a plot. The final battle takes place in a water vortex, a swirling, sucking hole in the middle of the ocean that's neatly analogous to this film's place in American culture.

Even though Johnny Depp was nominated for an Academy Award, the filmmakers seem actively confused about whom to anoint as their main character. Compared to Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley seem like wooden puppets. Will Turner (Bloom) searches for his father. Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) proves she can hold her own among men. They're separated then come together. They're on one boat, then another. The plot jumps from Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat) to the villainous venture between Beckett (Tom Hollander) and Davy Jones (Bill Nighy). Each character that comes on screen introduces another wretched plot point that drives the film further into the realm of discombobulation. The most amusing thing about the film is Barbossa's monkey. Whenever Verbinski needs a "moment," he relies on the monkey. And as if we cared about Sparrow's inner turmoil, Verbinski introduces a ridiculous and wasteful bit of introspection that involves Sparrow talking to other imagined Sparrows.

"Pirates 3" is appallingly long. What Verbinski and crew seem to call entertainment, I call torture.