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"Pirates" Sequel Walks the Plank You know you're in for rough seas ahead when the only blurb on the outside of the DVD box is from Larry King. Don't get me wrong, Larry is a good interviewer, but to read his lone quote on the back of this DVD says to me that the marketing gurus could not come up with a suitably positive endorsement of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" from a nationally recognized film critic. Arrrr! I was pleasantly surprised with the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, and so even though I heard nothing but bad buzz surrounding this sequel, I decided to set sail for a second time with Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in search of the Dead Man's Chest. Depp was so charming in the first film, but he has little to do here. This sequel ratchets up the special effects and action, leaving a near incomprehensible story and a cliffhanger ending that makes the film feel less like a movie and more like an extended marketing tool for next year's third installment (thank you to Texas Monthly columnist Sarah Bird for that observation). Forty-five minutes into the movie, I still couldn't figure out what the damn thing was about. Here's my best guess: Captain Jack owes a blood debt to Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), captain of the legendary ghost ship the Flying Dutchman. Meanwhile, there's a British baddie who is determined to use Will Turner (hunky Orlando Bloom) in his quest to find the Dead Man's Chest. If he fails, it's curtains for Will and his bride Elizabeth (Keira Knightley). Soon everyone is after the Dead Man's Chest for their own reasons, and the movie turns into a four-way chase for the chest and its precious cargo, with Davy Jones, Will Turner, and Mr. Norrington (Jack Davenport) joining Sparrow in his quest. It ends with a cliffhanger and a promise to go to "the world's end," conveniently the subtitle of "Pirates" part three, arriving summer 2007. All of this is played out with a minimum of explanation. What debt does Sparrow owe to Davy Jones? What does the snooty British fellow want with the Dead Man's Chest? How did Will and Elizabeth end up in such a pickle at the beginning of this movie? Why do some of the dead men look like humanoid sea creatures while others just look a little soggy? Blink and you'll miss the answers, if there are any. On the other hand, the filmmakers are not at all shy about including fantastic action sequences in the film at the expense of the narrative. There's a chase scene on a rolling waterwheel, a boat chase, and an attack by a giant creature that has the tentacles of a squid and a mouth like the Saarlac Pit from "Return of the Jedi." A visit to Tortuga is carried off well, with plenty of rowdy pirate behavior. And the special effects wizards went wild with Davy Jones and his crew, turning them into squirming fishy creatures. I thought that was a little distracting after a while, but I must give them credit for using a more natural voice for Davy Jones instead of opting for a traditional "bad guy" sinister baritone. In one of the special features included on the 2-DVD set of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio smile when they describe the difficulties they faced when ordered to write a pair of sequels after the original "POTC" became a box-office smash in 2003. That first film was a self-contained story, and their challenge was to come up with a pair of films that would follow the first organically as if they were all meant to be part of a trilogy. We'll have to reserve judgment until the final installment, because "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," does no service to the characters so charmingly introduced in the first film. Sure, Will is handsome, but he's even more boring here. Jack Sparrow was funny last time, but there's too little of him here, and he has few if any good lines. Davy Jones is little more than a talking squid, more squirmy than sinister. Only Elizabeth reveals more of her character. The rest of the lot, including the plot, is waterlogged. 12/16/06 Back to the main Cinema Tuesdays Reviews page More about the Cinema Tuesdays series  |
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