I saw this movie this monday and then yesterday evening again. Not that it is worth watching many times over. I just wanted to see if it looks better in the hall. Yes the effects are good and the story line is better than the second part which was to put it mildly, a disappointment. This one however is better than the second part in terms of the flow and even better than the first in terms of graphic effects. But the frist part did set the standard too high in the story line and thrill. And even with the added effect and some extra charachters and chinky pirates in the movie the story was a bit badly presented.
Now for the good part. We learn more about the kraken in one of the scenes, this is the same creature which took the Black Pearl down for Davy Jones in part 2. Also there is a big battle at the end but thats the only big ship battle that is shown throughout the movie. Frankly I would have prefered more ship battles like in POTC1 cuz a pirate movie without cannons blazing throughout is a bad pirate movie.
No doubt in my mind that this movie could had become the best one out of the series. It had all the potential and budget for that, now if they had only cut down about halve of the script...Most of the plot-lines seem redundant and are actually far from believable because they contradict from what happened in the first two movies. The many betrayals among characters and side-picking became really confusing after a while, till it reached a point when you just didn't knew who was fighting for what. But like I said before, after a while you just stop caring about it and simply enjoy the movie for what it brings you. It all is also the reason why the movie is now nearly 3 hours long. Now the movie is not as good and entertaining as the first but maybe just slightly better than the second one, because of the large scale of this movie.
I adored POTC 1, was a bit disappointed in POTC 2 (mainly the ending) and found POTC 3 to be a mix of the previous two. The awesome music is still in place, it's a bit faster paced than 2 (even with sections of dialogue in place), and the majority of characters get their come-uppance, besides there is also the original pirate song sung by a kid and few prisoners in the beginning. There's heaps of sword fights and more cannons than I've seen in my life. The special effects are seamless and mix with great cinematography and top notch costumes & makeup. Many characters are more fully fleshed out, which was nice to see.

However the ending is not pure Disney, which surprised me somewhat. Major characters die, and all is not rosy sunsets and fluffy kittens. That was a bit of a surprise, a couple of characters seemed to just disappear and there's an obvious link left open for another movie. Whether it's made or not is another thing entirely.

Most roles get extended in this movie. Marty, Tia Dalma and even Jack the monkey and Cotton's parrot. But of course the movie still remains the Jack Sparrow-show. Really one of the best characters in recent years, all thanks to Johnny Depp, who provide the movie with its biggest laughs and most hilarious absurd moments. He still plays the character as good and fresh as he did for the first time 4 years ago. You can't just ever grow tired of Jack Sparrow. I was also very pleased to see Geoffrey Rush back as Barbossa. His role was bigger which allowed Geoffrey Rush to shine even more. Bill Nighy was also as good as always as Davy Jones. Orlando Bloom's and Keira Knightley's acting also has really improved over the years. I was actually surprised to see how much of the movie Keira Knightley carries this time and how well she does this. Even in the sequences with Geoffrey Rush she does. She also gets to do more interesting in the movie when it comes done to action. In a way she has taken over the Will (Orlando Bloom) role in this movie this time and Will himself gets pushed more to the background this time compared to the first two movies, which really shouldn't bother most people, unless you're a teenage-girl of course. She handles both the action- and comical sequences really well. And even Keith Richards shows up in an already classic cameo as Jack's father. But some role also got narrowed down to my regret, such as Jonathan Pryce's and Jack Davenport's and lets not forget the Kraken.

One more point... stay until the end of the credits for an interesting extra scene.