I enjoyed the first two enough to make it through the run time even though I can admit that the plot wasn't heavy enough to earn those times.

At World's End had such a bloated run time...ridiculous. There's an entire subplot that could've been cut. Not to mention that final battle was so long because it was supposed to be the final battle of the series.

A lot of these studio tentpoles follow that 'me too' logic so I'm not surprised that the time is shorter. Whenever one film comes out and it's successful without following the norms, everyone tries to do that. I don't know what film started this but everyone's pushing to get their films down to two hours or less now whereas that was the minimum in the 2000s.