Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest; When too much of something is a bad thing.

Captain Jack Sparrow is in trouble (again). It’s time for him to repay the blood debt he owes to the evil Davy Jones. In order to save himself, he goes searching for the Dead Man’s Chest, the only thing that can stop Jones and the rest of his bloodthirsty crew aboard the Flying Dutchman. But he cannot find it by himself, so enlists the aide of Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann to help him (even though they have problems of their own).

As with the first Pirates, Dead Man’s Chest contained a terrific blend of dazzling action pieces; the three way sword fight between Jack, Will and Norrington as well as Jack’s escape from cannibals have to be seen to be believed, and enough goofy shtick to make everyone happy. Using another famous middle part of a trilogy as its model (it did remind one of The Empire Strikes Back in its structure, plus there’s even a visit to a mystic in a swamp for god’s sake), Dead Man’s Chest furthered the story of Captain Jack, Will, Elizabeth and the rest, introduced some new wrinkles into the Pirates universe and set up the finale nicely as the audience was left with unanswered questions. The star of the film, of course, was Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack. Director Gore Verbinski did right by letting Depp run wild again and the result was nothing short of jovial absurdity no audience member could resist.

However, there was an inferiority present in the pacing of the film and its story telling which made it harder to sit and digest this film in comparison to the first one. With so many characters and sub-plots to introduce and explore it was only natural that Dead Man’s Chest would run for over two and a half hours, unfortunately some of those things Verbinski and the screenwriters put up on screen were totally unnecessary (Will meeting up with his father while he was in the clutches of Davy Jones for example). While we’re on the subject of the villain of the piece, his design was uniquely intriguing, however the rest of his minions looked like rejected villains from bad Saturday morning cartoons (or distant cousins of Jar Jar Binks). All of the action and jokes one expected with the film were present, but Dead Man’s Chest lacked the spirited fun so prevalent in The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Grade: B-