Movie Review – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Directed by Gore Verbinski

Starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightly, Bill Nighy, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce, Stellan Skarsgard, and Naomie Harris.

Backstory

I’ll admit, I was one of the guys who was never really too interested in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  Avoided it when it was in the theatres, and when I finally saw it on DVD, I wasn’t particularly impressed.  Don’t get me wrong, it was good…I just didn’t find it to be the pop culture event of the summer of 2003 that it wound up being.  But here we are now, three years later.  The sequel has made a ridiculous amount of money, so I decided to go see what the fuss was about.

Plot

Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann are arrested on their wedding day for helping out Captain Jack Sparrow in #1.  They will be released if Will Turner goes on a quest to find Sparrow…and bring back Jack’s enchanted compass.  But, ya see, Captain Jack’s got problems of his own.  He owes his soul to Davy Jones, and Jones has come to collect.  Jack will give Will his enchanted compass if…he finds the key to Davy Jones’s chest.  Meanwhile, Elizabeth has escaped from prison, tracked down Jack, and now Elizabeth and Jack are off to find the chest.  And, along the way, Will is reunited with his father, and the Kraken destroys some ships, and there’s all kinds of evil, enchanted, mutant pirates.  Or something like that.

What I Liked

Industrial Light and Magic, as always, did a spectacular job with the special effects.  Johnny Depp once again makes Captain Jack a very likable character.  There’s some spectacular swordfights.

What I Didn’t Like

The plot gets kind of muddled and confusing after a while.  Far too many supporting characters makes it easy to get mixed up.  And I still don’t understand the whole nature of the curse on Davy Jones and why they needed his chest and all that.  All in all, it got mixed up pretty quick.  And even though I knew it was ending on a cliffhanger, it still ended kind of abruptly.

Final Assessment

I’m still not too impressed with this film series, and I still don’t grasp its popularity.  I just walked out of the theatre going “Meh.”  Someone please explain to me why this is so insanely popular.

2.5 Nibs