"Dead Man's Chest" Review

Well, I finally got out to see the latest record-breaking blockbuster movie yesterday... and the day before… That’d be Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, in case you didn’t already know. It’s already broken the single day and three day grossing records and promises to set even more if that’s any indication.

I don’t generally go to sequel movies expecting a lot, but Curse of the Black Pearl was so good that I really hoped this one would be able to measure up. Fortunately, it proved to be a worthy sequel to its predecessor though it doesn’t surpass it.

The basic plot picks up where the last movie left off. Elizabeth and Will are kept from being married by both their arrests for their part in Jack’s escape at the end of the last movie. Meanwhile, Capt. Sparrow is pilfering and plundering his filthy black guts out when he learns that the dread Davy Jones is after his soul. Will is then offered freedom if he will go and “negotiate” with Jack to get his mysterious compass that doesn’t point north. So the plot ends up essentially like this. Jack wants Will’s soul to barter with Davy Jones. Will wants Jack’s compass so he and Elizabeth can be set free. Davy Jones wants Jack’s soul as payment for a past transaction. Norrington (the commodore guy from the first film) wants revenge on Sparrow. And Elizabeth just wants to be married. If this sounds confusing, it is. It makes for a well-written, complex story that is at times difficult to follow. It’s definitely one of those movies you have to see multiple times in order to catch everything in it.

So how does it compare to the first one? As far as humor goes, it’s almost as funny as the first one. The humor is less about dialogue and more about physical humor, though. Worry not, Sparrow is still hilarious in manner and speech, but his character is developed in other ways as well. The action sequences top the original, especially Jones’s large, tentacled sea monster the Kraken.

It’s a wild, crazy, convoluted movie and to top it all off it ends as a cliffhanger. Naturally, they had to set it up for Pirates 3 which we will only have to wait a year for, and good thing, too.

So if you saw the first movie and liked it… you’ve probably already seen this one already. If not, you’ll like Dead Man’s Chest as well. In fact, I’m gonna go out on a very sturdy limb and call it the best movie of the summer (and probably the year.)