Pirates Of The Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest Details

Did I Leave the Gas On?

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 'Pirates' film, but 'Pirates 2' leaves you with a faint suspicion that maybe you should have got more out of it.

Whilst it could never be accused of failing to deliver one spectacular action sequence after another, what it sadly lacks is continuity. You are rushed from one death defying and in many cases nigh on impossible stunt to the next, whilst dropping in a tasty character development to keep you wanting more.

At well over 2 hours long it still feels rushed, as if they need to fit in as much as possible. In this sense, it is very like other "second in the trilogy" films, and ends with a suitable cliff hanger to keep you salivating till next summer.

Despite the bumpy ride it ticks all the boxes for fantastic set pieces, beautiful scenery and swashbuckling action. Johnny Depp is as over the top as ever, (and brilliantly so), and Bill Nighy provides a very suitable counterpart in tentacle faced Davy Jones, complete with his crew of aquatic monstrosities.

The script contains some genuinely funny moments, and plenty of intriguing references to make you want to watch the original again. All in all, a good way to pass an evening, but don’t go expecting any dramatic changes from the original.

[Highly rated reviewer]

POTC: Dead Man's Chest

Alright so it's not as good as the original but given that Curse of the Black Pearl was the finest swashbuckler since The Princess Bride that hardly counts as a big shock. Make no mistake about it Dead Man's Chest is largely more of the same, which means it is still, largely, enormous fun.

To go into the convoluted and only half finished (World's End arrives in May next year) plot in any great detail would take more words than I've the will to type and be largely pointless. Suffice to say Jack (Johnny Depp) owes his soul to Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and Will (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) get swept up Jack's adventures as he tries to retain his soul and avoid Jones' pet monster the Kracken.

Playing Jack Sparrow as Keith Richards in a pirate costume won Depp a (fully deserved) Oscar nomination for the first film. It won't this time but that's not to say Depp is any less good; it's just not a surprise anymore. However Jack is still as massively entertaining as he was in the first film thanks both to Depp and writers Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio who have given him some great one liners (to Knightley: You know, these clothes do not fancy you at all. It should be a dress or nothing. I happen to have no dress in my cabin.)

While giving the audience more of what they liked first time round Elliot and Rossio have wisely made a few character changes. Most notable is Keira Knightley's much improved role. Eizabeth was basically a damsel in distress in the first film. Here she's far smarter and more able to handle herself with Knightley getting her wish from the first film and having a couple of swordfights. Knightley is far better in this film than the first, most her scenes are with Depp and the chemistry, both comic and sexual, works well.

Orlando Bloom, by contrast, is exactly the same character and exactly the same actor and a bland, boring, centre for the film. The sequences of him on the Flying Dutchman are mere waiting time to get back to Jack.

Bill Nighy is fine as Davy Jones (despite the curious choice of a Scottish accent) but his cg beard is really the star of that performance.

The action is bigger and more expensive than in Black Pearl with a sequence in the last half hour which starts as a fight between Jack, Will and Norrington (Jack Davenport) and ends up with Knightley and the two comic relief pirates fighting Davy Jones whole crew the real standout.

At just over two and a half hours it is too long. A twenty minute sequence with Jack as the chief of an island of cannibals is fun but should really be in the dvd's deleted scenes and the monumentally tedious sequences with Naomie Harris as a voodoo priestess with a dubious accent spouting raw exposition should be languishing at the bottom of the sea.

It's also true that the story has more loose ends than Davy Jones' beard which will need deft tying up in World's End but, as a middle chapter, Dead Man's Chest is about as satisfying as I could have hoped.