If Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships, then Johnny Depp is certainly the face that made us care about ships again. While I’m too young to have been caught up in the Errol Flynn mystery, I’ve heard the hype, and I think I’m seeing it all over again. Johnny Depp isn’t manly—in the way that manliness was defined 10-15 years ago, by Harrison Ford, Bruce Willis or Ahnold—but he’s created something that has to be followed, appreciated and enjoyed. And, while I can’t for the life of me understand it, Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End demands my attention in ways no sequel or third act has since LOTR: Return of the King.

I rather despise the characters of Captain Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner: they’re all spineless, selfish, and quick to turn on each other and anyone else they perceive as disposable. But in contrast to their enemies, the West Indies Trading Company, Davy Jones, or even their new comrade, Captain Barbossa, these three are angelic. It’s only fair to note they’re also much more witty, and yes, easy on the eyes. But that still doesn’t explain the mystique.

I think my attraction, being no great fan of any of the Big Three, is that the pirate life as portrayed in a Bruckheimer-meets-Disney way is pretty darn glamorous. There’s something exciting, and please don’t get too political on me, about a band of motley folks who crash every party on the Seven Seas, defy “The Man” at every turn, and battle the forces of evil that they find themselves against. It’s easy to get sucked into that, even if the individuals are hardly heroic (aren’t all of the Big Three anti-heroic?). They still seem to have what it takes, in a very witty way.

And when it comes down to it, I hope that At World’s End they all find redemption. I laugh heartily at a scene from the trailer where Captain Jack asks, “So which ones of you came just because you missed me?” and the monkey is the only one to raise his hand/paw. Can we see our own lives yet? Can we see that we live in a win-win, me-me, buy-buy, etc. culture, that demands that dog-eat-dog, even if we know it’s counterproductive to real living?

I hope, and it is a Disney movie, that at the World’s End, our heroes find peace, however brief it needs to be, before they go globetrotting again in a money-making chapter of the quadrilogy. Come on, you don’t really think it’s over… do you?