Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Movie Reviews | Jul 10th, 2006

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Starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce, Kevin McNally, Tom Hollander
Written By: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
Directed By: Gore Verbinski

I absolutely LOVED the first Pirates movie and knew it was gonna be a huge blockbuster movie before it even came out. But of course there are people out there that don’t like the movie and think it’s stupid. It’s a pirate action/adventure movie, what are you expecting? Some artsy fartsy movie that’s in black & white, about cowboys eating pudding? Pirates II takes the series in a new, dark direction and I like it! The movie isn’t as good as the first film but it’s still an entertaining summer flick!

Pirates of the Caribbean starts off with Elizabeth being left at the alter because Will is being arrested. She goes and protests and ends up getting arrested as well. They are being brought up on charges of letting Captain Jack Sparrow free. Commodore Norrington also has a warrant for his arrest for letting Jack go, but he’s nowhere to be found. After that, you see Jack Sparrow on the Black Pearl talking about a map of a key, that’s a key to a chest, and you need the key to open the chest, but first need to find the key. Woof, that’s exhausting and confusing.

Lord Beckett, who imprisons Will & Elizabeth, sets Will free to go meet up with Jack Sparrow and get his compass. Beckett knows how special the compass is and wants to locate the Dead Men’s Chest. The chest contains the heart of Davy Jones, and whoever possesses it, basically becomes lord of the sea. Davy Jones is the legendary sea captain who lives underwater with his sea creature servants. If you run into Davy Jones, you either have to pick life & become a sea creature and serve out your debt with Davy Jones. Or you don’t and you die. Decisions Decisions! Anyway, so everyone wants to find the key to the chest & the chest itself. But they have to deal with Davy Jones & his crew first, along with his deadly and unstoppable Kraken.

I think the problem with what people might have going into this movie, is expecting so much from it. Whereas in the first movie, no one knew this movie would turn out great so they were surprised. I heard all the mix reviews before I saw this movie but it didn’t stop me from liking this movie. I’ve been waiting for this for far too long to be disappointed in the film. Yeah, it wasn’t as good as the first movie and there was some unneeded storylines in the film(cannibals, ghost dress), but I still loved watching this movie. Jack Sparrow was once again, the highlight of the movie and just a joy to watch on screen. Johnny Depp has finally secured a character he can play over and over again if he wanted to (which it seems he does!). There wasn’t as many jokes as the first movie but there was still plenty of funny moments.

There were a lot of references from the first movie, jokes from the old movie that happen to other characters; plus there were some nice hidden references for the ride again. What I liked about this movie was how dark its getting. You see people getting their eyes plucked out, getting killed by the Kraken, and just some of the scenes in the movie seemed a little bit scarier than the first one. Davy Jones’ crew were menacing, and each one was unique in their own way. Davy Jones was a great villain and certainly lived up to his legendary name, though there still are plenty of things you don’t know how about him yet. Which is one of my complaints in the movie but hopefully they will be cleared up in the third movie. But Davy Jones is also a notable highlight as well because the special effects were so amazing for him. Definitely Oscar-worthy for ILM because they took what WETA did for Gollum and stepped it up a notch (if you can believe that)! I couldn’t believe that was all CGI and not makeup & animatronics. I believe Bill Nighy was on the set in the motion capture suit the whole time, so that’s why the performance is so awesome and believable.

Other things I liked about the movie was some characters of the first film get more screen time like Pintel and Ragetti, along with Norrington. Norrington does a 180 from what his character was last time and I like it! It also demonstrates how great of an actor Jack Davenport is. Everytime I think of him though, I just think of Coupling. But I like how they gave him a lot of key scenes to the movie and stepped up his role. I knew he was acting like a wimp in the last one and wanted to get some revenge. For the henchman Pintel & Ragetti, you first see them trying to steal back the Black Pearl but then up on the crew, working for Jack. They could have explained that a little better but I just now realized they had the jail dog with them so I guess that explains how they got out. Taking a back seat this time in terms of screenvtime was Elizabeth & Will. The first film, it seemed more like an overall effort in terms of characters, but this time; it’s the Jack Sparrow movie. There is nothing wrong with that at all since his character is awesome.

But if you go into this movie thinking this is going to be the best movie in the world, you will be disappointed. It does have its flaws but that shouldn’t be a reason to not like the movie. I loved watching the Kraken scenes, all the stuff on the Flying Dutchman (which they should have shown more of), the three way sword fight, and any scenes with Jack. If I think there was anything to cut out, it should have been the cannibals scenes because it wasn’t really necessary. It was quite funny to watch but it wasn’t necessary. Now, the best part of the entire movie was the absolute end. It ends on a cliffhanger and it just has me gitty for the next movie. Seeing all these villains and great characters on screen all together should make for an exciting conclusion. I was wishing what happened at the end was going to happen. But I think the sequel could have been better in some areas, and the story could have been honed down better. We could have certainly seen more sowrdfighting that’s for sure! But other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and plan on seeing it again soon. Now bring on the third movie & Keith Richards!!

Favorite Scenes: Davy Jones was incredible as well as his sea servants, the three way sword fight was cool, the kraken scenes were awesome. The scenes in Tortuga were a lot of fun.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 150 minutes
Overall Rating:

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