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Yo-Ho-HumThe dreary second chapter of Pirates of the Caribbean.

By Dana StevensPosted Thursday, July 6, 2006, at 5:23 PM ET

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Johnny Depp swashbuckles in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest It would take more than just one bottle of rum to while away the 150-minute running time of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Disney). The movie itself is a kind of treasure chest, albeit one so crammed with baroque visuals and tangled chains of plot that you have to sift through its overabundant contents in search of the odd pearl. In fact, if not for the running commentary offered by the obliging 8-year-old on my right, I'd have had no idea what was going on, as the movie depends heavily on in-jokes and references from the previous installment, The Curse of the Black Pearl—a movie I always meant to see, as soon as I felt sufficiently seaworthy. That day somehow never came.

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Dropping in on the middle chapter of a trilogy seems as good a way as any of assessing the state of the franchise. In the case of the Pirates brand, complacency seems to have set in, replacing what I gather was the bold freshness of the original movie (which nonetheless clocked in at a none-too-swift 143 minutes). Dead Man's Chest trades shamelessly on its status as the filler in the Pirates sandwich, ending on a surprise twist that's a virtual advertisement for part three, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (due out in 2007). The ending was so lazy that on the way out of the screening I saw total strangers commiserating on its crassness. Did we really just sit through two and a half hours of deafening action sequences, wild plot twists, and at least two false endings only to be told, in essence, to cough up $10 more next year?

The film's crisscrossing storylines are both convoluted and utterly dispensable. First, Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), the high-cheekboned lovers of the first installment, are imprisoned during their wedding ceremony by a merchant-trading bad guy (Tom Hollander) who threatens to execute them unless they can lead him to a magical compass owned by Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Sparrow, the mincing, sexually ambivalent captain of the Black Pearl, has problems of his own. He owes a blood debt to Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), the lord of the undersea world, and to avoid becoming an eternal member of Jones' gooey undead crew, he must find the key to the chest containing Jones' still-beating heart. All this nonsense is a fine pretext for much hoisting of grog, shimmying of masts, and near-roasting by island cannibals. If only the director, Gore Verbinski, had a feel for the propulsive energy needed to move a story forward.

Despite his heartthrob status in real life, Orlando Bloom has consistently functioned as a node of negative energy on-screen, sucking the life force out of all who surround him. Nonetheless, Keira Knightley, with her radiant mouthful of Chiclet-sized choppers, rallies as the plucky Liz. Knightley was too much the fairy-princess ingénue to make a credible Elizabeth Bennett in last year's Pride & Prejudice, but when it comes to stamping her foot in period dresses, she has no peer. As for Depp's Sparrow, he's become a collection of tics in search of a character; he was probably more interesting in Depp's script notes, since he comes off as an enigmatic visitor from another movie. As Davy Jones, the wonderfully soft-spoken British character actor Bill Nighy is unrecognizable beneath a foam-rubber head mask that turns him into a human cephalopod—not so much an octopus as a multipus, with countless earthwormlike appendages wriggling independently (and disgustingly) around his sagging, noseless yellow face. His head is one of the few takeaway images in a movie jammed to bursting with gross-out gags and eye-popping makeup jobs.

For all its cynical money-grubbing, Dead Man's Chest has moments of exhilarating beauty (as when a monstrous sea creature rises from the deep to clasp the pirate ship in its tentacles as if in a giant hand) and spectacle (an extended swordfight conducted atop a spinning waterwheel recalls both Errol Flynn and Buster Keaton). The effects are breathtaking, and much of the action is choreographed with energy and wit. (A chase sequence on a cliff uses visual gags that defy the laws of physics, Wile E. Coyote-style.) But all of these moments bob on the film's slick surface like so much flotsam. Without a beating heart at its center, this Chest feels empty indeed.

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Dana Stevens is Slate's movie critic.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray Editor:

Opinion seems to be unanimous: reviewing the second-part of a trilogy without seeing the first installment is a crime against critical integrity. Even the Fray Editor is scratching his head over that one... G.A.

Remarks from the Fray:

By the way, how did the 8-year-old like the movie?

--betsyclemen

(To reply, click here.)

Not sure what to make of a movie critic who couldn't be bothered to see the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. How can a movie critic be too busy and/or apathetic to see one of the top five grossing films of 2003, a film that was nominated for five Oscars?

What was especially amusing/appalling was how she tries to justify that apathy for her profession:

Dropping in on the middle chapter of a trilogy seems as good a way as any of assessing the state of the franchise.

Actually, no, it doesn't seem that way. Rather, it seems like as lazy a way as any of assessing the state of the franchise.

It's hard to take a movie critic seriously who doesn't take movies seriously.

--bob_mong

(To reply, click here.)

A sequel should be able to stand on its own as a good movie. That's not to say the plot should be independent of the prequel - would Two Towers or Return of the King make sense without watching Fellowship of the Ring? But if you are making a series, each installment should be worth watching.

That was a problem I had with the Star Wars prequels. Phantom Menace was slow-paced and bogged down in exposition. The commonly heard excuse was that it was setting up the next movies.

Well, that sounds great, but if I'm going to shell out $14 and spend three hours in a theatre, it had better be a good movie.

--Dusty_Bear

(To reply, click here.)

I have to disagree with you about Johnny Depp's character - he is definitely not "sexless", as you claim. His focus just isn't about "getting the girl" as many movies focus on - his goal is the "Black Pearl" ship and getting the Davy Jones' heart.

--Heather26380

(To reply, click here.)

It's all too common for "mainstream" reviewers to heap disdain on a genre they clearly neither appreciate nor understand. I mean really, would anyone dare to start a serious review of --say, wine-- with: "I don't drink wine, but man this red stuff really tastes weird to me." Or cover a foot ball game thusly: "Hey, what're all those guys in tight pants doing, just standing around so much? What a dumb game!"

Which is pretty much what this reviewer did. I just saw the movie and as a fan of the genre, and someone with some background in such things, it was a cracking good show, well above average as fantasy movies go.

--Dancing_Otter

(To reply, click here.)

I must agree, however, that the plot is overly and unnecessarily complicated with sub-plots that add nothing to the overall progress of the film, seeming only to add "filler" where none was required. What the film greatly LACKS is a good job of EDITING. It was as if someone said "Hell, we shot all these scenes, let's just stuff them in somewhere." Most should have been included in the DVD as ""out-takes".

--Teirisias

(To reply, click here.)

(7/10)

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