In my wildly brief "review" of the first film in this series, my main lament was that it was too long. Well, the same thing can be said of this one, but this one is so much better than the original that I almost didn’t care...almost...but I digress.
Outside of the length, this is as much fun as you’ll have at the movies all summer...and who knows? You might enjoy the fact that it’s an epic! Depp is back as fun as ever and again is joined by Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly. But the main reason that this is an amazing film is because of the bad guys...Davy Jones and his crew. Not since the cantina scene in the original Star Wars has there been such a wild, fun, and visually stunning assemblage of freaks that are both great to look at and fun, fun, fun! Even below all the Squiddly Diddly type appendages that Davy Jones has hanging from his face, if you’re familiar with Bill Nighy, you’ll recognize him from his eyes and voice. The costuming, effects makeup, CGI, art direction, scenic design, and set design of the whole film is beyond amazing...just stunning.
And along with it being a great looking film on every level, they remember the one thing that is paramount for movie viewers wanting to escape...fun. This thing is fun from stem to stern. There are winks within that acknowledge "Hey, this is a movie, not real life...get over yourself and have fun with us!" Just as it’s predecessor was a little too intense for the kiddos, this one is even moreso.I can’t recommend a more fun moviegoing experience for the summer and can’t wait to see the 3rd one. Check it out in the theater to get the full experience.
Many characters are unearthly creatures with extreme physiologies -- essentially bloated, decaying, barnacle-encrusted corpses of dead sailors arisen zombielike to terrorize the sea. Their leader, Davy Jones, is the movie’s most amazing creature. His head is that of an octopus whose many tentacles wiggle, glower and reach out ominously as he rages against all living beings. This imagery gets repeated in his pet sea monster, Kraker, a giant version of his head.
Depp is less a swashbuckler than a swishbuckler as he prances and preens through the movie with a bemused scowl on his face and the devil-may-care attitude of a hero who knows things will turn out well. He is the comic gel that holds the whole enterprise together. The performance is a total delight that somehow combines Bugs Bunny, Peter Pan and Charlie Chaplin.
, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest has a complicated story that just doesn’t need to be this complicated. The audience shouldn’t have to be PhD candidates in Piratology to enjoy the movie and get the story! It took me almost ¾ of the film to understand everyone’s motives, all of the dealing and double dealing and the additional twists caused by the appearance of other characters, who all have their own motives and schemes. Then, you realize not much of it matters because it’s all just a set up to the story we really need to know for the third film, Pirates of the Caribbean: World’s End (coming out next summer).