Jeb's Movie Reviews: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

My brother brought home Dead Man's Chest yesterday. I never saw it in the theatres so i decided I should watch it. Especially since it was the top box office grosser last year.

I actually enjoyed the first Pirates of the Caribbean. I was pleasantly surprised throughout. Thrilling action scenes. Impressive special effects. A totally absurd performance by Johnny Depp that somehow still worked. The one bad thing you could say about it was the length. It was about 2.5 hours and probably could have been 30 minutes shorter.

Well Dead Man's Chest keeps that problem but adds a host of others. I found the plot pretty hard to follow. That might be because they've set this up as the 2nd part of a trilogy and they will explain things in the 3rd. But all the characters seem to have changed and I don't know why. Is Elisabeth falling for Jack? Why has Jack decided gotten more morose? It doesn't really seem to fit with the first one. Most of the action scenes were pretty good (I was a little disappointed by the lauded "water-wheel" swordfight). And the actors are all pretty good and some have even improved (good job Orlando Bloom). There are some interesting twists and the villain is delightfully despicable. But some of the twists and additions....well once again I'm complaining about the length.

I guess what hurts it most is usual thing with sequels. Once you've seen it before, how do you expand on it. Some either kept it up or were able to successfully go in different directions. The Lord of the Rings was done pretty much at the same time so I guess they're not really sequels. The Godfather Part II tells the second leg of the Corleones' story while also delving into the origin. Aliens went int action mode as opposed to Alien with the haunted house in space vibe. Spider-Man 2 was able to excise most of what made the first weak and add more to the strengths to be the best superhero movie ever. The Empire Strikes Back went in a darker direction. That long-winded diatribe is meant to explain that some sequels have kept the quality up or improved. Dead Man's Chest unfortunately does not do this. The worst is that was startlingly great and original about the first was Johnny Depp's eccentric performance. Now it seems like old hat.

I probably sound a tad harsh. Dead Man's Chest is probably in the top half of your usual summer Hollywood action extravaganza popcorn thrill movies. But coming after The Curse of the Black Pearl, it registers as a disappointment. Hopefully World's End will be able to solve most of the problems in Dead Man's Chest. Although I'd expect it to be 2.5 hours yet again.