Overall Rating: ****
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest @ IMDB
Synopsis:
Captain Jack (Johnny Depp) is back in this action-packed sequel to the Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Captain Jack Sparrow’s time is up. The dreaded Davey Jones (Bill Nighy) has called to collect on the deal that made Jack the captain of the Black Pearl. His only hope is to find the Dead Man’s Chest, an artifact of great power, that will bring Jones to his knees. But things get complicated when Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), head of the East India Trading company makes a play for the Chest, dragging Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Kiera Knightley) in to the adventure.
Review:
This was one movie I was really anxious to see. I thought the first film was excellent, and I hoped the sequel would live up to standard it set. I have to say that I was a little dissappointed. I enjoyed the movie but I think it could have been a lot better. There are somethings that were as good as the last time, including Depp’s, Bloom’s, and Knightley’s performances. The effects were also as good as the last time. In fact, I think there was a slight improvement. The CG and creature effects seemed more refined than they did in the first one (fluid movements, etc.).
So the big thing that bothered me was that this movie was not self contained. When the first film was done, things seemed to be wrapped up fairly well. I had hoped that the sequel would be an entertaining adventure that would be done in two and a half hours. This movie ends on a cliffhanger/twist. There are absolutely no conclusions in this film, it is all setup for part three. Now sometimes this can work when the story is an epic or a saga, Lord of the Rings for example. Here, it seemed like they were trying to be like Empire Strikes Back, but they fell short. I know it sounds like I hated this movie and that’s not true. It just wasn’t what I had hoped.
For my criticism, you might wonder why I gave this movie four out of five stars. Well, my four star rating is somewhat conditional. I don’t normally do this, but I think that if part three, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, is good then this movie was good. Since Dead Man’s Chest was preparing us for At World’s End, then we can only know how good of a job it did once we’ve seen the final chapter.
The final criticism I have for this film is that it seemed to unravel some of the tidy knots the first film tied up. I don’t want to get in to them for fear of revealing more of the plot, but I think you’ll agree once you’ve seen it. In the end, I recommend you see this movie, mainly because At World’s End may really be amazing. I don’t think its worth the primetime ticket, but seeing it on the big screen makes a difference.
July 13th, 2006 at 10:09 AM
Your website is really cool! For this movie I think I’ll wait till it comes out on video.. maybe I’ll see it right before the next one comes out. (For you that mights seem like a long time to wait but I only see like 3 movies a year, haha).
July 13th, 2006 at 10:17 AM
interesting review, you should post this on FilmCrowd.com
we already have a Pirates review page going here: http://www.filmcrowd.com/content/world/all/5308/Pirates_Of_The_Caribbean_Dead_Mans_Chest/8/0
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:09 PM
[…] but as my new “editor” pointed out, I have to write this one to complete my review of Dead Man’s Chest. I gave that a conditional 4 stars so I need to review this movie and then make an addendum to that […]