Who says wacky pirate adventures involving a squid faced villain with slimy tentacles who lives beneath the sea can’t be fun? Gore Verbinski’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” is the second installment of a three-part trilogy that picks up where “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” left off. Co-written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, the film pits the incomparable Capt. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), the craziest pirate on the high seas, against the legendary Davy Jones (Bill Nighy in a mesmerizing performance full of mirth and menace), an amazing CG character who sails the ghostly Flying Dutchman and to whom Capt. Jack is seriously in debt. Blood debt, that is.

Indeed, Capt. Jack owes his soul to Davy Jones and his supernatural army of sea phantoms, and time is running out. Desperate to find a way out of making good on his promise and save himself from the eternal damnation and servitude that await him, Capt. Jack inadvertently upsets the wedding plans of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) who are forced to join him on yet another exciting and comic misadventure.

The film is filled with non-stop action and some major set pieces that are sure to please fans including a cannibal barbecue with Capt. Jack as the guest of honor. Kudos to costume designers Liz Dann and Penny Rose for the necklace of severed toes Capt. Jack sports while slowly roasting on the spit. The cinematography (Dariusz Wolski), production design (Rick Heinrichs), visual effects, prosthetics, and makeup are all first rate. The CGI, however, threatens to distract from the fundamentals of storytelling and almost overwhelms the film at the expense of the piracy, fencing, gun battles, drunken singing, and good old fashion skullduggery that lent authenticity to the first installment of the trilogy and made it so entertaining. That said, POTC 2 offers us ingenuous narrow escapes, exciting cliff hangers, a fishy captain who bargains for the souls of those he captures, and a giant sea monster named Kraken who really knows how to suck.


While the film feels long at two hours and thirty minutes and might have benefited from some trimming, its saving grace is the surprising, wildly inventive acting genius of Johnny Depp. Instead of relying on dreads, mascara, and a few strategically placed gold teeth to turn in a repeat performance, Depp builds on his character infusing it with wit, mischievousness, and a deliciously devilish sense of unexpected integrity. Thankfully, Bloom and Knightley are given more to do in this second installment. Will Turner finally meets up with his father, Bootstrap Bill (an impressive performance by Stellan Skarsgard), while Elizabeth Swann masquerades as a young male stowaway who tells Capt. Jack she’s “looking for the man I love.” And Naomi Harris delivers a hot turn as Tia Dalma, the fortune teller everyone wants to know. Indeed, “POTC2” is filled with more kinkiness and subversion than any Disney film in recent memory including a subconscious message in the character Depp portrays. Then again, this is the studio that killed Bambi’s mother, not to mention Nemo’s.

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” takes a while to put a wind in its sails but, once it does, it offers a fun, exciting, action packed ride that ends with a major cliff hanger setting us up for the third film of the trilogy. Depp once again lives up to his reputation for being one of the finest and most unpredictable actors of his generation, and he does it in a way that never leaves you feeling that he has sold out.

In the meantime, while I’m waiting for the next chest of gold in this pirate’s life, I’d like to know where that mischievous buccaneer rogue Capt. Jack stashed all the rum? Me thinks I need a drink or two or three to put a little swash in my buckle until the next Pirates adventure.

Source: Pirates of Carribean (see more links)

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