Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Directed by Gore Verbinski
Written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
Starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush, Bill Nighy, Stellan Skarsgard
Release Date July 7th, 2006
Published July 5th, 2006
2003's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a major surprise. Here is a film from the Disney formula factory, based on a theme park ride of all things, produced by mainstream dress meister Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by an unproven talent in Gore Verbinski. With all of these factors the film should have stuck to high heaven. Instead, Pirates of the Caribbean was a high spirited, high seas adventure that features arguably the best performance in the career of one of our greatest actors, Johnny Depp, and a pair of rising stars just ahead of the peak of their talents.
Naturally sequelization was a no-brainer, especially after the film began breaking the bank at the box office. Students of the Hollywood game are well aware that surprise hits like Pirates are once in a lifetime events. So it comes as no surprise that the sequel, subtitled Dead Man's Chest, suffers a case of sequelitis. It's the disease that strikes most, if not all attempts to recapture one time magic; see The Matrix and its sequels as the prime example.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is nowhere near as dreadful as Matrix Revolutions, but it does fail to recapture the swaggering, daggering fun of the original film by being bloated, overwrought and incomplete.
When last we saw Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) he had escaped the gallows and was back as captain of his beloved Black Pearl. Aided by the lovely young couple Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), Jack escaped the villainous Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and was free to return to his scalawag ways and get on with the business of pirating.
Will and Elizabeth have since returned to port to be married. Unfortunately a new man in charge of the English port, Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), has decided to arrest them for aiding Jack's escape. Beckett is willing to make a deal. If Will can convince Jack to give up his precious broken compass and bring it to Beckett then Will, Elizabeth and Jack himself will have their freedom.
The compass is not actually broken. Rather it is not in the hands of its rightful owner and thus will not point in the direction of its intended destination. The compass points the way to a buried treasure that is not merely gold or precious metal. It points the way to a chest containing the still beating heart of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) an accursed pirate who sails the seas as an undead sea creature for eternity. Whomever possesses his heart controls Jones and his undead crew.
Jack will not be easily convinced to give up the compass. You see, Jack owes a debt to Davy Jones. It was Jones who gave Jack the Black Pearl some 13 years earlier in exchange for Jack's soul. With Jones now ready to collect the debt, with the help of a monstrous sea creature called 'the kraken', Jack needs to find the heart of Davy Jones to save his own life.
That is plenty of plot and yet barely enough to fill the movie's overlong two hour forty minute runtime. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest suffers from the Hollywood 'bigger is better' syndrome. The idea that because something is bigger or longer that it is somehow better is something Hollywood has practiced but never proven. Dead Man's Chest is further proof of the exact opposite.
Stuffed to the gills with filler scenes of Will's search for Jack, Jack's dalliance with native islanders and a subplot for Jonathon Pryce as Elizabeth's father are all examples of places where director Gore Verbinski might have tightened up the film's narrative.
About the native scenes, not nearly as offensive as those in King Kong, I would hate to lose the rolling cage scene featuring Will and the crew of the Black Pearl inside a giant globe made of human bones being chased downhill by angry natives. The scene is well shot, exciting and quite funny but also quite superfluous to the plot. The scene exists simply to exist. Losing the native portion of the film would cut more than a half hour out of the film's bloated 2 hour 40 minute length and narrow the plot in a more concise manner. Of course, length is not the film's only problem.
Director Gore Verbinski managed a miracle in the first Pirates film corralling a career defining performance from Johnny Depp into what is essentially a factory picture made from a very typical Disney/Bruckheimer formula. For the sequel, unfortunately, Johnny Depp seems to be doing an impression of himself as Jack Sparrow. His heart simply isn't in it this time. Depp does manage more than a few classic moments, especially in his last scene, an instant classic of grand guignol, but for the most part he is going through the motions of recapturing what we remember of Jack Sparrow. There is simply nothing new or energetic about the performance.
Orlando Bloom at least looks more the part of an action hero than he did the first time. Bloom is maturing into a fine actor whose fine features are no longer overshadowing his talent. As written however, his Will Turner does not have a great arc. His part is not nearly as juicy as Jack Sparrow which tends to leave him looking bland but worse yet writers Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott now have him fighting for the love of Elizabeth with Jack Sparrow which only further serves to expose the characters blandness.
As many issues as I have with the film as a whole, I did not truly dislike Dead Man's Chest. The film has some grand adventure wrapped up in its overlong runtime. Watch for the three way sword fight inside a giant wheel, an extended bit of action that actually has something to do with the plot. Especially good in Dead Man's Chest are the special effects that transform the brilliant Bill Nighy into the sea creature Davy Jones.
Essentially a man with a giant squid on his head, Davy Jones is a remarkable feat of CGI creature creation. Nighy's entire face, including the very expressive eyes, is the creation of CGI. This is cutting edge stuff used to very gross but also grand effect. It is not only Nighy's Davy Jones but a whole crew of CGI sea creatures including a pirate with the head of a hammerhead shark and an unrecognizable Stellan Skarsgard as a pirate covered in barnacles and with a secret that becomes an important plot point for Dead Man's Chest and likely for the third installment of Pirates, subtitled At World's End, due in 2007.
Yes, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is the middle child of this major franchise and yes it does feel like it. Though plenty is resolved a lot of unanswered questions are necessarily left open for the next sequel. The unanswered questions aren't quite as annoying as those of the second Lord of The Rings or Matrix films but still irritating.
By the standards of a movie sequel based on a theme park ride, from the Disney/Bruckheimer film factory, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a fun picture. By the standards of great movie making? The film suffers from Superman-itis on top of its sequelitis. Superman-itis is an affliction that affects films expected to be culture defining moments of pop history that turn out to be less memorable than the hype that surrounds them.
I am recommending Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest for the special effects and occasional flourish of it's grand action scenes but lower your expectations Pirates fans this is not the Curse of the Black Pearl just a pale photocopy.
