Pirates of the Caribbean:Dead Man's Chest Review

“A lackluster, long-ass journey with little treasure. Argh”

In a summer full of sweeping franchise epics, such as Superman Returns and Mission Impossible 3, Pirates of the Caribbean:Dead Man’s Chest proved to be another notch in the Hollywood bedpost for a sure-fire winner. After the first Pirates went on to make a boat-load of cash(no pun intended), a sequel was definetely in order. As a matter of fact, 2 were, as production is on the third Pirates is coming close to ending. A few of the readers of this withering rag expressed their excitement to witness the daring escapes of Will Turner(Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth(Keira Knightley) and the charming shennanigans of Jack Sparrow(Johnny Depp). I wasn’t blown away with the first one, but found it to be good fun and dare I say, “savvy”? Well it appears, that ship has sailed in this one(pun definetely intended).

Let me say this: I like franchises. I dug The Matrix, X-Men, Star Wars, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings etc. They definetely work well in the telling of a story and keeping viewers wanting to come back to the theaters. Pirates to me maybe merited a sequel, just to capitalize on some good preformances and for a little more fun this go-round. But by tying into this idea of 3 movies, the story gets lost in the current shall we say. Following this movie is pretty messy, with lot’s of unnecessary info with little to no prefacing or introduction. I stuck around simply for Depp’s preformance and the cool effects and action.

In this long-winded sequel Will and Elizabeth’s wedding is interrupted by some crazy little British commander who claims that they will die unless they find Jack Sparrow. Will goes off in search of Jack who apparently has a debt to pay with his soul for having captained the Black Pearl for 13 years. Davy Jones (Bill Nighy, the old-guy from Love Actually) is captain of the Flying Dutchman to which Jack’s soul will crew if he doesn’t get him 100 souls in exchange. Having said that, there are many other little quips and lines the story takes that really kind of overload the viewer. Thus the first 2 hours of this become pretty much a sufferable bore, only for it’s decent action sequences.

And even then, I’ve seen better action sequences this summer. I’ve been truely taken aback by some of the effects this summer in other movies. Pirates could have been a 2 hour kick-ass movie had it just removed some of the unnecessary’s. Those being;story-lines involving characters from the last movie, a daring rescue on a tribal island and numerous others. I understand theres a larger story being told here, but the audience came to see ships being blown up and pirates kicking ass and drinking, with a great deal of charm and comedy. Maybe this movie took itself too seriously, as I was seriously non-impressed throughout.

That being said, I did enjoy the Will-Elizabeth-Jack trio. They really do hold the film as an almost Luke-Leia-Han, without the real brother sister thing of Luke and Leia obviously. But that being said, that almost feels played out as well. The movie leaves the viewer with a twist/cliffhanger ending (yay) which opens the third movie. Director Gore Verbinski had his hands full making an intelligible movie out of what must have been a monster script and setting up for a third, so for his efforts, I commend him. Albeit, Knightley definetely needed better direction, with her scenes seeming a bit awkward. Must be hard when Johnny Depp is doing his thing and Orlando Bloom is doing his best Errol Flynn. I don’t know if an ingenue who can kick ass has a place in this series. Damsel in distress? That sounds more fitting.

Ok so like my reviews, this movie was long and full of nonsense with occasional brinks of excitement and action. Nothing I really gasped over but definetely didn’t walk out of the theater. If you can spare half an eternity to captain this vessel(man I’m so quippy), take the rainy afternoon and use it on this. If you loved the first one, then it doesn’t dissapoint. But if you just simply liked it, not really loving it, then maybe wait for DVD. This one gets 6 out of 10 Bones, edging that last Bone out for having to expend it’s energy for the third movie.

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