Movie Info

Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest

The first Pirates of the Caribbean film caught everyone by surprise. It was fun to watch and was immensely successful at the box office. Pretty good for a Disney World show eh? With such a huge success, Disney decided to let Gore Verbinski film TWO more Pirates films back to back. So was that a mistake like the Matrix films? Absolutely not.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest is a great sequel to the first movie. Verbinski manages to capture the feel and essence of the first movie and continue it throughout the sequel. It would have been easy to set up a simple plot but the story was complicated and the pace was lightning fast.

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) owes a debt to Davy Jones and the time has come to pay up. However, Davy Jones isn't the only one hunting Jack. Cutler Beckett, representing the East India Company, is seeking Sparrow to retrieve something that Jack possesses. To hunt Jack down, Beckett blackmails Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) into finding Jack. Of course, true to her nature, Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) doesn't sit idly by and quickly gets entangled in the entire adventure.

From the beginning of the movie to the very end of the movie, the action kept coming. Just when you thought there wasn't any more to see, Verbinski would add some more action scenes in. The movie was just so fun to watch. I don't know about you, but there's something about pirates that just screams fun!

Disney managed to get the ENTIRE cast of the original movie back for the next two films. I love it when movies, especially sequels have that type of consistency. It doesn't become distracting when a new actor tries to interpret a character. Johnny Depp is the most underrated actor for the last 15 years. He doesn't get enough praise in the acting community. He has such great range when it comes to his characters. I don't understand why the man hasn't won an Oscar...or has he? Too lazy to check.

Orlando Bloom continues to show that he can definitely remove himself from the "other" fantasy character. It's funny to hear all the girls adore Bloom when ten years ago, all the girls adored Depp. With Bloom for the younger ladies and Depp for the older ladies, what do the men in the audience get? Keira Knightly is still as sexy and alluring as from the first film. She's actually a little too skinny for my tastes but her character in the movie is great.

The computer animation and makeup for Davy Jones and his crew was amazing. They really went all out with the character designs. I especially enjoyed the transformation of Bootstrap Bill. Some of the crew from the Flying Dutchman were just too freaky for me and I was definitely getting some goose bumps looking at those characters.

The Kraken was done really well in the movie. For those who don't know, the Kraken is that really, really big squid that likes to eat things. The movie was a great mix of live action stunts and CG effects and Verbinski seemed to blend them together well.

The sets and costumes in the movie were amazing as well. I'm not sure how many actual ships they had to build, but those ships were awesome. It was a total shame that so many had to be destroyed. The many locations in the movie were great and really added to the overall effect of the movie.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is what a summer blockbuster should be. There are been too many movies of late that have been "deep" or "dramatic". I really miss the action/adventure days where it was just non-stop action and people were just entertained.

Sure there may have been holes in the plot, but it really looked like the actors enjoyed making the film and really got into the characters. The movie was a great mix of comedy, action, and a little bit of drama. My eyes were really glued to the screen trying to absorb everything that was happening. If I had to go pee, I would have peed in a cup so I wouldn't miss any of the action. The ending was superb and I barely noticed that the movie was 150 minutes long.

If you enjoyed the original Pirates of the Caribbean and you're looking for a great entertaining movie, go to the theatre and watch this. It's so much better on the big screen. I'm definitely gonna pick up the entire trilogy once the third movie is released next year. Arrrrrr!

Dragoncrypt