Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (7 July 2006)
directed by Gore Verbinski
starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport, Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Lee Arenberg, Mackenzie Crook, Kevin McNally, Stellan Skarsgård, Geoffrey Rush, Naomie Harris, Tom Hollander, Martin Klebba, Alex Norton, Lauren Maher
|
MPAA rating: Studio: Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Walt Disney Pictures Script: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio Music: Hans Zimmer Running time: 150 minutes Tags: Action; Adventure; Comedy; curses; oceans; pirates; rum; ships; swords; treasure Tactical strength: [6/10]
|
for intense sequences of adventure violence, including frightening images
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest takes the characters from the first Pirates movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl, and places them in a new adventure. All the plot points revolve around Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), captain of the legendary Flying Dutchman. Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) made a pact with Davy Jones in the past. In exchange for Jones raising the Black Pearl from the depths, Sparrow gets to captain the ship for thirteen years. At the end of the pact, Sparrow owes Jones his soul. To gain leverage on Jones, Sparrow seeks the dead man's chest, where Jones stored his still-beating human heart. Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), an agent of the East India Trading Company, also wants leverage on Jones. Jones controls the Kraken, an enormous sea monster that can consume an entire ship. With control of Jones, Beckett hopes to make shipping safe for the East India ships and impossible for all others. Beckett, of course, doesn't want to do any work himself, so he arrests Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) moments before their marriage and threatens to send them to the gallows unless Turner obtains Jack Sparrow's compass, which Beckett believes will lead to the key. Swann escapes from prison as well, and everyone moves at full speed through non-stop action.
If you want action and don't care much about plot or character development, then see Dead Man's Chest. If you like your action movies to have some purpose behind the action, then you will probably find this movie runs a bit long -- like I did. Visually, I thought Dead Man's Chest did an amazing job at bringing the undead men cursed by Davy Jones to life. Unless something incredibly amazing comes out later this year, I would expect Dead Man's Chest to receive an Oscar for both effects and makeup. But looks aren't everything. For example, early in the film, the crew of the Black Pearl gets captured by cannibals and stored in a spherical cage made of human bones and suspended above a deep chasm. The crew manages to get the cage out of the chasm, but they don't get out of the cage before the cannibals come running after them. The crew starts the cage rolling, and the comedy ensues as ten men -- including one midget -- in a rolling ball try to escape. Later in the film, we have several major players engaged in a swordfight atop a water wheel. The wheel's axel comes loose from its mount, and the wheel begins rolling down hill with the swordfighters atop. Again, we have a large rolling object making its way downhill filled with major cast members. Why use the same plot/comic device twice in the same movie? Either one or the other would have worked, but both made for tedium. And logically why don't the fighters just jump from the dangerous wheel and continue their battle on firmer ground?
So let's talk about characterization. Since so much action takes place, we really don't have much character development. Will Turner seems to flip flop too easily for and against Sparrow. We get a teeny bit of development in Elizabeth Swann, as we see that she has possible romantic feelings for Sparrow. Perhaps we should read more into the two bird names -- do we have love birds? Johnny Depp again gives an amazing portrayal of the rum-soaked pirate, but for some reason the scriptwriters have dumbed down his character. In the first movie, Jack Sparrow always makes witty comments or comebacks, but his observations never seem stupid or misdirected. In Dead Man's Chest, Jack makes several speeches trying to explain his plans or intentions where his explanations just leave the hearer bewildered. As viewers, we understand his intent, but Jack appears less able to communicatate verbally than in the first movie. Other than these tiny tidbits of character development, we just have the same characters developed in the first Pirates movie thrown into a bunch of (really good) action sequences. All action and no development, makes Dead's Man's Chest an overall dull film.
Related Item from Amazon.com
  DVD |
