Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
4/5
"Complications arose, ensued, were overcome." - Jack Sparrow
The Original Pirates of the Caribbean was a great movie. And for a live action Disney movie that is no less based on a Disneyland ride, that is something of an achievement. And not only did I see this movie as great but so did most of the critics and the movie going public. Those two factors can only mean one thing. Sequel. Whether the movie needed it or not. In this case it did.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest is what you would expect from a sequel, but a good sequel. Thankfully it doesn’t loose much of the great charm, story, and visual spark that made the first movie so great. Well, who am I kidding? What made Pirates the real breakout hit it was was the superbly bizarre performance and writing of the character Jack Sparrow as played by the great Johnny Depp. There is no need for Pirates fans to fear as I can say that they don’t hold Depp back one bit in this picture, letting the Jack Sparrow Persona take over every scene with its great mix of rough style and quick witted drunken comedy.
Something that comes with most sequels is a constant reference to little moments in the previous films, and that’s where an issue lies with this film. For Example; Fans of Pirates may remember a funny line in the first movie about Elizabeth (played by the hottest women in Hollywood Kiera Knightly) destroying all the rum on an island that she was trapped on Jack with. Well that joke is rehashed in Pirates 2 to the point that you find yourself saying enough already with the rum jokes. We get it, pirates drink rum, lets move this movie along please. But not just references get rehashed, but in sequels you see small characters break out into large characters that may or may not work. This was one of the major flaws with the awful shrek sequel (one of them). Here in Pirates we see the role of the two comic relief evil pirates become assistants to Jack and to be honest it works for me. Many times you will see these two just walk in on a major action scene and latterly break down the entire plot of the movie and debate the moral reasoning behind everything. Quite humorous if you ask me.
There was one other thing that carried on strongly from the first film to the second that I thought was left in the past. The first movie was a surprise hit because no one really expected a movie based on a Disneyland ride to be all that great. And in the first movie you see a handful of references to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. But what really came as a surprise to me was that the number of references to the ride may have doubled in this sequel. For example I counted the “dog with the keys” gag at least 3 individual times in the movie. Like the rum joke I found myself a bit bored with this constant harping on this one joke. They also hashed out new locations in the movie based off those of the ride. I thought that the first one was so successful that they would be able to branch out and get away from the major ties to the ride and just be a great movie, but I was wrong.
Orlando Bloom is back in the film as well and plays his role well. Orlando Bloom I don’t see as a fantastic actor, but in this role he works, even though I do believe that this movie should have been a Jack Sparrow spin-off, leaving the rest of the people from movie 1 in the past. But the downside to that is you don’t get Kiera Knightly. Kiera Knightly returns as well and she looks more amazing then ever. As I said earlier, not only is she a very talented actress, but the most beautiful women in the Hollywood circuit right now.
The story involves Jack Sparrow trying to remove a curse that’s been placed upon him by hunting down the means to dispose of the man who has cursed him, Davey Jones. This villain doesn’t pack the same great punch that Geoffrey Rush brought to the villain Barbosa in the first Pirates, but he works well enough. Jack Sparrow ropes the fugitive Will Turner and Elizabeth Turner into his crew, as well as other familiar faces, and they set off to save Jack from his curse. Some may say that the movie is too effects driven, but those are the people who have issues with effects heavy films. But the amount of effects in this movie are greatly exaggerated, as I believe that there isn’t a bit of cgi in the first hour of this movie. After that you meet are fully cgi villain and the monster which he summons which is also cgi. But seeing as how the previous movie had walking skeletons as villains, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.
There is one thing that I do think that this pirate did much better than the previous. And its not that the previous Pirates movie did this poorly, but that Pirates 2 does it so well it will make you say wow, and that is the visual style. The locations matched with the pace and the camera work adds up to one hell of a great visual film. One scene that comes to mind involves every single party in the movie arriving upon a white beach for a multi-party action scene where characters begin to loose track of who they are fighting, why they are fighting or what their goals are from time to time. No, it’s not an error in the writing but a rather funny and extremely visually pleasing action sequence that leads us into our finale. The choreography in the fight scenes are terrifically played out and are far from predictable, while maybe not the most plausible. But then again, if you buy into a giant fish man as a villain, you should be able to buy into everything else.
Overall, Pirates is a great summer action flick that brings back most of the great elements that made you love the original. And while it does suffer from some of the sequel syndrome, and leaves us with a cliff-hanger non-ending, there is enough quality in this film to walk out with a smile on your face.
