Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest

RATING: A-

Perhaps the greatest risk the first Pirates of the Caribbean film took was adding the subtitle "The Curse of the Black Pearl" onto the film title. Generally, that's begging for trouble. It's as if you've set your heart on making a film series, but if that first film flops, you might look pretty stupid for adding that subtitle. 

Fortunately, The Curse of the Black Pearl was a massive success and universally loved. Gore Verbenski and company got to make their sequel(s). After making an almost flawless first film with a perfect blend of action and comedy with a still-strong plot, where do you go from there? Why, you bring in the devil of the seas, of course. "Davy Jones' locker" is a long-used term referring to being sunk to the bottoms of the depths, hinting at such a supernatural being waiting for you down there. Or something. 

Dead Man's Chest centers around Jack Sparrow owing a debt of long servitude aboard Davy Jones's ship, the Flying Dutchman--which we later find out is basically being as good as dead--and so he's not having that. He races to find the actual disembodied heart of Davy Jones (it's not nearly as stupid as it sounds) and use it against the sea devil to avoid being enslaved. Will and Elizabeth end up along for the ride as well, but for different reasons and different purposes--trying to recover their freedom from Lord Cutler Beckett, a separate villain with his own motivations (which I won't reveal in this particular review). 

In an interesting move, the comedy is taken down a slight notch in this film (there's still some though, don't worry) and the action is taken up a bit. This time around, we get action scenes involving the Flying Dutchman and Davy Jones--and to be highlighted the most, the ones including Jones's pet sea monster... the Kraken. The attacks and battles involving the Kraken are absolutely incredible to watch, in part because nothing else like them had ever been done before (or since). Sure, there have been sea battles in film involving real animals like whales or sharks or even normal squids, but nothing like this. 

Davy Jones himself is a fearsome antagonist; due in part to the utterly incredible CGI that portrays him (and the brilliant acting of Bill Nighy behind the CGI) and his squid-tentacles-covered-face. As good as Barbossa was in the first movie, Jones is an excellent move for the next movie's antagonist, as he and his Kraken up the stakes considerably. The various other minions--which, like Jones are weird amalgamations of various aquatic creatures also have some impressive CGI on them and there's actually some creative work there (there's one guy who actually somehow has the head of a hammerhead shark). 

Despite mixed reception, I fail to see a whole lot wrong with this film. Sure, it's not as good as the first at the end of the day, but it's very exciting to watch as well. Beyond the action scenes mentioned earlier, there's also a cool swordfight between multiple characters which somehow ends up including fighting on top of a well wheel. And there's also a bar fight. Yeah, this film includes a lot. Some complain of the ending--and one character's choices in said ending--but I think it works. Plus, you need a cliffhanger ending somehow since you're doing back-to-back sequels, right? 

If there's one big issue with this film, it's the sequence relatively early on in the film on the cannibal island. This part of the film does not match the tone of the rest of the film at all, especially considering that at times it almost goes to Looney Tunes-esque zaniness, whereas the rest of the film takes a lot darker approach. It feels like the whole thing was just tacked on to make the film longer. 

Aside from that and a couple of other isolated minor issues, Dead Man's Chest is a strong sequel that expands well on the mythology of its universe, offers some great new antagonists and much higher stakes and just is quite entertaining for most of its 150 minutes. While it may not be quite as fulfilling as the first one, it's still a good example of a sequel done right. 

Too bad it goes downhill from here.