Todd Williams traded $10.50 and a Thursday evening for a romp through a palace of celluloid dreams.

Johnny Depp's latest high-seas adventure is fueled by the almost boundless limits of human imagination and the awesome power of computer animation.

The 31-year-old Oxnard man had been planning to see "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" for months.

Williams took no chances, buying his ticket ahead of time through Fandango.com.

He arrived at the Edwards Camarillo Palace 12 cinema complex at 7:20 p.m., well before the 8:30 p.m. showtime.

He staked a place near the front of the line, confident the latest chapter of the "Pirates" trilogy would be as good as the first two.

Williams told a reporter he was certain that Depp's latest salty-dog big-screen film would not disappoint.

"I love the special effects and the characters in these films," Williams said.

The movie is expected to be a treasure chest for its makers.

The Camarillo cinema was among many Ventura County theatres that got a jump on the Memorial Day weekend by showing the movie Thursday evening, ahead of the scheduled 12:01 a.m. Friday showtime.

"At World's End" faces stiff competition from "Spider-Man 3" and "Shrek the Third."

"At World's End" is running around the clock at some cinemas to meet audience demand, said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Walt Disney Co., which released the film.

"At World's End" is less about a tightly knit plot than about a conspicuous display of the power of make-believe. The film is a 167-minute roller-coaster ride across the high-seas, a place populated by all manner of pirates. While some of these marauders look like the traditional ones in pirate films made 60 or more years ago, others might as well be from another planet.

One of the pirate's beard is composed of an octopus' tentacles and move as if they were attached to a live octopus.

Some pirate ships surface from beneath the sea, splashing up to the top as if it were a modern nuclear-powered submarine. The sails are covered in seaweed. The faces and bodies of their crews are also covered in barnacles and other underwater sea plants and creatures. One pirate has the head of a hammerhead shark. Another has an eel's head.

Dialogue is laced between these wild flights of fancy. Some of it is good and some is downright inane.

"Do you think he planned it all out, or does he just make this up as he goes along?" one of the characters asks another. The question might just as easily apply to some of the plot in the film.

While some movie goers may find these shortcomings unforgivable, Williams did not even seem to notice them.

"I loved it, it was awesome," said Williams as he walked out of the movie nearly three hours after going in.

Williams said he especially liked the characters in the film and of course all of the special effects.

In fact he liked the film so much, he plans to see it again. He also will buy the film when it's released on DVD.

Still, Williams agreed the plot might be a little hard to follow for some.

"I think it definitely helped that I saw the first two movies before seeing this one," he said.

Were it not for that, "it probably would have been a lot harder to follow what was going on in this film."

The Associated Press contributed to this report