Overall Rating
  Awesome: 16.4%
Worth A Look: 31.22%
Average: 20.63%
Pretty Bad: 19.58%
Total Crap: 12.17%
14 reviews, 105 user ratings
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| Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest |
by U.J. Lessing
"A Sticky Throbbing Rummy Hangover"

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If you are ever in the mood to have part of your life energy extracted from your body by a movie, then “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is the perfect film for you. Walking out of the theater, colors will seem a little less bright, puppies playing will seem less joyful, and you will barely have the energy to unlock your car for the ride home from the multiplex. Fortunately, unlike most Jerry Bruckheimer productions, the recovery time is only a couple of days. Consider yourself lucky: those who saw “Bad Boys II” still can’t hear the sound of children’s laughter.The plot is a mess of particulars, and in order to fully understand what is going on, you have to have memorized certain details from the first movie. Here are some study guide questions:
1. What was so special about Jack Sparrow’s compass? 2. Who is Norrington, and what was his job? 3. What is the Black Pearl? Who owns it? 4. Which pirates were good pirates, and which pirates were undead bad guys?
Once you’ve got these answers under your belt, you are ready to jump into the story. Evil Lord Cutler Becket (Tom Hollander) of the East India Trading Company arrests lovebirds Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and threatens them with death unless Will fetches Jack Sparrow’s compass. Will reluctantly agrees, and searches for the pirate.
Meanwhile pirate Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) steals a piece of paper with a drawing of a key from a sea-dungeon. He wants to find the key and also a chest. But then a supernatural waterlogged guy covered with sea shells magically appears in the hold of the ship and tells Jack that he’s a marked man, placing a black dot on his hand. Turns out he’s Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), Will’s lost father.
Elizabeth meanwhile escapes from prison, and goes chasing after Will. Two other pirates from the first film escape from prison and go searching after Jack. Everyone except Elizabeth ends up on an island of drumbeating, ooga-booga-shouting, 1940s style cannibals who believe that Jack Sparrow is their god. Everyone tries to escape.
It was when a ship suddenly emerged, sailed by a crew suffering from the heartbreak of Seborrheic crustaceanitis and under the leadership of a squid-man with crab claws that things got really complicated.
It seems that Jack Sparrow made a deal with the Cephalopod Captain, Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) before the events of the first film, and now Davy Jones is going to collect his soul.
Davy Jones acts like a jerk because he was once in love with a woman, and the love was unrequited. So being a hearthsick Anthozoa, he tore his heart out, put it in a chest, and chose a life of collecting dead souls from the ocean. He inexplicably hid the chest on an island.
Davy Jones also has control of a giant sea monster called the Kraken that enjoys eating ships while flinging CGI extras around with its tentacles.
Oh, and did I mention that the film is the first of two parts? Hopefully, the audience will be issued CliffsNotes for the next one!
Yes, the movie is beautiful. Yes, Davy Jones and his gang of sea pirates are amazing creations. Yes, there are even some fun and exciting action scenes, but the ridiculous story quickly overtakes them, and washes them out to sea.
As the rascal pirate, Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp finds himself adrift in an ocean of complications. In the first film, Depp had fun chewing on the scenery. In this one, the scenery swallows him up and eats him raw.Everything from the original Pirates of the Caribbean is back: the writers, the director, the three leads, the secondary characters, the really minor characters, and even the stupid monkey and the annoying parrot. Added to this mix are a handful of new characters, a slew of locations, and a really complicated plot. What is noticeably absent is entertainment.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=14738&reviewer=396 originally posted: 07/12/06 08:04:59
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USA 07-Jul-2006 (PG-13) DVD: 05-Dec-2006
UK 06-Jul-2006 (12A)
Australia 06-Jul-2006 (M)
Trailer
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