Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Not a great film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) was at least entertaining and fun. The excitement and the plot were naturally intertwined, and the film built a certain pace and momentum. You knew where it was headed, roughly, but you enjoyed the ride. And there was the novelty of some state of the arts special effects. Above all, there was Johnny Depp with his dead-on impersonation of Keith Richards as Jack Sparrow, captain of the Black Pearl. He was worth everything else the film had to offer.

In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), we have the dreaded sequel. Jack Sparrow is back, and at least in the scenes in which he appears there is some interest, though the charm and novelty have worn off, somewhat. For the most part, this second installment is a muddy, sodden, plotless preparation for part three. In fact, the whole point becomes evident in the last thirty seconds. It wouldn’t have mattered what events preceded those final seconds, as long as the film brought us to them.

There is more action here than in the first film, but much of it doesn’t make any sense, and there is not much logic to the sequence of events either. They involve a much dreaded sea pirate with an octopus head named Davy Jones and his extremely unlikely crew—unlikely even by the logic of the first film. There are sword fights, stunts, sea battles, giant kraken, a mysterious key, a beating heart in a buried chest, evil British sailors, runaway waterwheels, and on and on. You don’t really need to understand what is going on in the film. All that it demands is that you watch it. The only guiding logic is the insistent, irresistible urge to arrive at the last thirty seconds. But it takes a long time getting there, and a lot of it hardly matters.