Back Rowe Reviews
Real Time Movie Reviews from the Back Row of a Theater

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (PG-13)

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Directed by: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp
July 2006

“Depp and Crew Are Dead in the Water”


What happened? The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was a rousing crowd-pleaser that featured one of the most memorable characters to grace the silver screen in quite some time, Johnny Depp’s swaggering lush, Captain Jack Sparrow. An unqualified success on every level, Pirates was a feel-good romp filled with red coats, nefarious pirates, stolen treasure and a skeleton crew, literally. Aside from Depp’s spellbinding performance and the witty dialogue assigned to him, what made Pirates sail was relationships: Jack and Will forging a tenuous friendship, Will and Elizabeth falling in love, Jack and Barbossa squaring off during the movie’s harrowing climax, etc.

In the sequel, entitled
Dead Man’s Chest, these relationships are quickly discarded to service a plot that sees Jack and Will at each other’s throats and Elizabeth smooching Jack just a short time after her interrupted wedding—before they can say “I do,” Elizabeth and Will are dragged away in irons and slapped with the charge of treason for aiding Jack in the previous film. In order to receive a pardon, the couple must steal a special key from Jack. Jack, however, has troubles of his own as he’s been slipped the black spot and is desperately trying to avoid a sea-bound leviathan called a Kraken.

Along the way, they encounter many familiar faces from the past as well as the new baddie, Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), the squid-faced master of the underworld who holds absolute sway over his barnacle-encrusted crew. Onboard Jones’ magical ship, the Flying Dutchman, Will encounters his father, Bootstrap Bill; Will soon learns, much to his dismay, that a rescue attempt is impossible as his father has lost a wager and will spend the rest of his existence in servitude to Jones. In addition to a stealthy submarine mode, the Flying Dutchman can also summon the Kraken, which surfaces about every half hour just to keep things interesting. With the Kraken’s maw resembling a giant sphincter, the movie could be renamed
Pirates of the Caribbean: Attack of the Butt Kraken…an adequate title for a grossly inadequate sequel.

Whereas the first
Pirates movie was clever and amusing, the sequel is silly and confusing. Trying to make heads or tails of the writhing, often nonsensical plot is tantamount to understanding the dice game played by Jones’ crew. I have to give the writers credit for taking risks—Dead Man’s Chest certainly isn’t boring, though it does run at least a half hour too long. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts to avoid sequelitis, the writers have presented a story that, not unlike a sailor’s matted and tangled beard, is a disheveled mess. Besides the tenuous storyline, some of the movie’s action scenes are just downright ridiculous; like the dizzying sword fight on the runaway water wheel or the entire sequence involving Jack’s flight from the natives, which borrows heavily from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi.

Silly scenes notwithstanding, the greatest tragedy here is that Captain Jack isn’t even remotely funny, and what’s more, isn’t even likable. His one-liners plummet like anchors, not because they’re poorly written, but because the character left his charm back at Port Royal. Somewhere between movies, either the writers or Depp himself lost Jack’s voice. Here he comes off more as a self-centered, cut-throat pirate and less like the irreverently insouciant debonair we fell in love with in the first movie.

After a dizzying two and a half hours, the movie ends on a low note; Captain Jack finally faces the Kraken and a dark cloud of uncertainty hovers over Will and Elizabeth’s relationship…the whole kiss thing. The “supposed” major twist ending is possibly the finest example of
deus ex machina I’ve ever seen—and that’s no compliment. The arrival of the surprise visitor from the past is clearly intended to put an exclamation point on the film’s final moments, but instead, the strategy backfires and leaves the audience in a state of confusion—it’s a contrived cliffhanger that clumsily creates another loose end.

As the old pirate’s adage warns, “Dead men tell no tales;” unfortunately, the living ones didn’t have much to say here either. It’s been reported that parts two and three were filmed at the same time—to say that I’m dubious about the quality and potential of the third chapter would be colossal understatement. We’ll see if Depp and crew can right the boat. As for
Dead Man’s Chest, it’s an aimless, listless and witless story that’s anything but shipshape.

Rating: 2