Have you gone to a restaurant for the first time, sat down at the table not expecting terribly much, only to be delightfully surprised by how wonderful the entire meal was? Have you then ever gone back to that restaurant and sat down expecting another truly incredible meal, only to be moderately disappointed by its semi-wonderfulness?
Well, that’s kind of how I feel about Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s overly long and doesn’t quite have the bounce or humor of the first film. To be sure, Johnny Depp is still wonderful as Jack Sparrow, Keira Knightley plays Elizabeth Swann with just enough bite and anger combined with a softer side, and Orlando Bloom is just as upwardly righteous as Will Turner as in the last movie.
The movie picks up a little after the original left off. Will and Elizabeth’s wedding day has arrived, but it is immediately put on the back burner as Lord Beckett of the East India Trading Company threatens to execute them for aiding Jack Sparrow (Beckett, of course, is not doing this for the good of the world, he has nefarious purposes of his own). Will agrees to go track down Jack in exchange for clemency.
Jack, naturally, has problems of his own. Jack had made a deal with Davy Jones years ago which allowed him to captain the Black Pearl in exchange for which Jack would serve as a member of Jones’s crew for 100 years or face the fearsome kraken. Jack’s time, however, is up and Davy Jones wants him as a crew member on his ship, the Flying Dutchman. Jack is able to trade Will Turner and the promise of other crew members in exchange for his own life.
From here the movie begins to progress in interesting, fun, and not entirely unforeseen ways. Without giving too much away, Will Turner meets and gets to learn about his father, Elizabeth has moments where she falls for Jack, and Jack finds himself, repeatedly, battling for his life. 
More often than not, the movie is just plain good over-the-top fun.
But, with a two and a half hour running time, the movie pushes the bounds of decency for this type of fare. What’s worse, however, is the fact that it ends without an ending. The audience sits there for two and a half hours only to get a non-ending. Granted, films like the Lord of the Rings series do the same thing, but Peter Jackson seems to manage the cliffhanger in a better fashion. For a movie where the sense of fun began to wane almost 30 minutes prior to the credit roll to finish in such a fashion feels rather pushy on the part of the filmmakers. But, the fact that the film is one of the biggest successes at the box office this year most likely means that I’m on my own feeling this way; the vast majority of the audience seems to have quite enjoyed not only the film, but the end as well (there had to have been second and third viewings for the movie to make the amount it did).
Article comments
1 - Lisa McKay
I am totally set for part three. Depp is so much fun to watch in these that it totally makes up for whatever else they lack.
We watched this last weekend from Netflix, and of course my only regret is that they don't ship the second DVD, because I would have really liked to see the special effects stuff.