9. Inside Davy Jones' Locker - The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
The second film in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Dead Man's Chest, ends with a surprising and exciting turn of events: Elizabeth Swan handcuffs Jack Sparrow to the mast of a Black Pearl which is minutes away from getting swallowed by the ferocious Kraken. Jack breaks free of his chains but is unable to escape the sea monster devouring both him and his ship.
The Scene: At World's End, the next film in the series, picks up pretty much where Dead Man's Chest left off. The crew is trying to find a way to rescue Jack, who has been cursed to rest in Davy Jones' Locker. We don't see Jack again until about 45 minutes into the film, where he is slowly losing his mind aboard the Black Pearl, which is stranded in the middle of a barren desert wasteland.
Why It's Terrible: The portrayal of the Locker itself is pretty cool, manifesting itself as a soul's worst fear. Therefore, its appearance changes depending on who is imprisoned there. Jack's driving wish in life was to sail the sea forever, so a barren wasteland devoid of any ocean would be his worst nightmare. With that said, the sequence is handled exceptionally poorly, relying on slapstick humor at the expense of any sort of character development or intriguing story beats. Even for a Disney movie, the scene of Jack chasing a peanut around the deck of the Pearl is incredibly childish and goes on for far too long, taking away any gravity the sequence could (and should) have had. The film never really tells us what's going on inside the Locker, and how it pertains to Jack personally. Killing Jack in the second movie was a bold move, and audiences had to wait a year after the events of the second film to see what happened next. Then, after a 45-minute buildup,
this is what we get? The look of the Black Pearl stranded in a wasteland remains one of the most iconic and brilliant pieces in Gore Verbinski's trilogy. It just would have been nice for the film to take its events seriously, rather than using the scene for slapstick humor, which derails the film until the crew comes to rescue him.