All I Know for Sure is That There are Pirates of the Caribbean and a Dead Man's Chest

Gore Verbinski, 2006

I typically try to stay away from movies that star Johnny Depp, and I certainly try to stay away from reviewing them. The reasons are simple. For the former, people seem to get uncomfortable sitting next to a person who repeatedly screams, “TOUCH ME, JOHNNY” at the screen. And for the latter, people seem to get uncomfortable reading the above sentence. Consequently, I have decided to leave JD out of my review of this film and try to focus on the other, less scorchingly hot aspects of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.



POTC: DMC proves two things:
1. a movie that contains everything good that a movie should contain (pirates, swordfights, humor, romance, surprises, cameos, and actors from BBC’s The Office) can contain too much of said good things and
2. commodores clearly look better with beards.



True, this rabidly awaited sequel to one of the most fiscally and cinematically successful movies ever raises the bar for amazing special effects and overall excitement. There were several times when I actually had the thought, “My children* are never going to know what movies were like before CGI allowed a man to look as much like a barnacle as you could ever imagine.” (Except that’s really an empty statement, because my kids will have film history shoved down their throats with a side of panna cotta and raspberry coulis, but you know what I’m saying.) In addition to such feats, the film (and its predecessor) manages to conquer a far greater obstacle, getting a clever, funny script that doesn’t fit neatly into the mold of every single movie-made-out-of-a-themepark-ride-or-some-other-such-familiar-GenY-childhood-memory. In short, POTC:DMC brings us a fantastically entertaining nautical spectacle with intelligence and polish.



T’would have been a perfect film, if I could have just figured out what was going on.

POTC:DMC reminded me a lot of Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005). It was a beautiful thing and clearly the product of some good direction and fine talent, but as far as I know, there is no Academy Award for “Most Action.” And to be frank, twenty-minute sequence after twenty-minute sequence of narrow escapes and daring rescues sort of deplete your stock of patience for scenes that are created purely to visually entertain the viewer. We agree! We agree! Your CGI guys are radical, and you’re right, we never would have thought that those three dudes could have had a swordfight on top of a water mill’s wheel that has come loose and now rolls through a jungle populated by cannibals and undead sailors who are also half conch shell.**



The film is two and a half hours long, and I’d say about a tenth of that is actually dedicated to good old-fashioned dialogue. This severe limitation on the amount of Jack Sparrow one-liners that we get to relish is sad, definitely, but also, a good smattering of expository conversation here and there would have really helped tie the pieces of an ever-broadening plot together. I can’t even remember Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) or what’shername (Kiera Knightley) saying more than a few lines each, and you’d think the wildly popular Jack Sparrow (sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow) would get way more screen time. At times, all three seem to exist as a backdrop to the special effects. However, the new characters are rather interesting (Naomie Harris as Tia Dalma, Bill Nighy as Davy Jones***, and Stellan Skarsgard as Bootstrap Bill), and, like I said, what script does exist is sharp as can be.



Think of it as POTC:DMC: The Extended Version**** and fork over your money to see it in the theater. None of this “wait for the DVD” junk. You might as well experience the onslaught of visual stimulus via a medium that can appreciate it. Just don’t let any pirate fatigue distract you from the really tight film beneath it all. Sooner or later, maybe when my kids are adults and CGI is really just a given, filmmakers will stop showing off and get back down to business.

*Lucky devils.
**I didn’t make that up.
***Davy Jones’s personality did a good job of making its way through the utterly incredible squid effect concealing his face.
****And hope against hope that that doesn’t actually exist somewhere.