Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Rating

Director

Gore Verbinski

Screenplay

Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio

Length

150 min.

Starring

Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport, Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Lee Arenberg, Mackenzie Crook, Kevin McNally, David Bailie, Stellas Skarsgard, Tom Hollander, Naomie Harris, Martin Klebba

MPAA Rating

PG-13 (For for intense sequences of adventure violence, including frightening images)

Review

In the world of mega-blockbusters, late-planned sequels are an inevitability. Unlike films that begin production knowing they’ll end up a trilogy (such as The Lord of the Rings), Pirates of the Caribbean was originally designed as a stand-alone movie but when Disney added the subtitle The Curse of the Black Pearl to its marketing scheme, you knew that test audiences must have displayed enthusiastic opinions.

And rightly so. The first film was incredibly entertaining and, thanks to Johnny Depp as the drunken Captain Jack Sparrow, the movie was far better than it probably should have been. The problem is that Dead Man’s Chest became the most hyped movie of the Summer and consequently will likely be the highest grossing one as well. But is Pirates of the Caribbean 2 really worth it all? No.

There are perfectly entertaining aspects to the sequel, mainly thanks to Depp’s charismatic performance. But there are also plenty of terribly annoying ones. Orlando Bloom seems to have appeared on set, read his lines, done a few stunts and walked off the set. There’s no magic or passion behind his performance. There’s only stock glares and deadpan eyes. Keira Knightley does Bloom one better. She uses the same expression for anger as she does for remorse. It’s such a wildly flat performance that I’ve seen children’s art class drawings with more depth.

The supporting cast of charactersis far more entertaining this time around. With The Curse of the Black Pearl, all you had was Geoffrey Rush. This time, you have Stellan Skarsgard who suitably plays Will Turner’s cursed father Bootstrap Bill, Bill Nighy donning CGI tentacles and giving a creepy, yet credible performance as Davy Jones and the somewhat-clichéd work of Naomie Harris as Voodoo woman Tia Dalma.

The crew of the ship seems to gain a bit of depth. The bumbling duo Pintel and Ragetti (Lee Arenberg and Mackenzie Cook)provide their fair share of laughs. But it’s First Mate Gibbs (Kevin McNally),who plays straight man to Captain Jack, who deserves a great deal of credit. He doesn’t get a lot of screen time in the first film but here, he shines in every scene he’s of which he’s a part.

The premise for the second film is that Captain Jack Sparrow has promised his service to Davy Jones in exchange for the resurfacing of The Black Pearl, the ship that everyone wants to own. Jack refuses and thus begins Jones’ fight to get Jack into his service, destroying what he can with his pet kraken along the way.

That’s the plot. There really isn’t much to it. Sure, there’s a pseudo-surprise ending that leaves many questions unanswered and prompts us to wait for the final part to the trilogy, At World’s End, to find out what’s really going on.

The rest of the film is padded with unnecessarily long action sequences. They alternate between impressive(The first few minutes of the water wheel scene) and lackluster (the fight in Tortuga). The film does feature impressive visual effects but that’s all there seems to be. Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski does little to frame the film in more than dismal mediocrity.

Hans Zimmer, for some reason, replaced the musically intriguing Klaus Badelt. There’s nothing satisfactory about the score other than the strains from Badelt’s work on the first film. Perhaps these changes have more to do with Disney bosses and producers sticking their own fingerprints on the film or Gore Verbinski complete lack of originality.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest boils down to a sloppily-written action-adventure film with a few remarkable performances and great special effects. Otherwise, it’s as overblown as past crowd-pleasers Armageddon and Independence Day.

Review Written

July 17, 2006