Can't complain too much, but still, stick with the original

Rating: 4/10 (27 May 2008)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
The East India Trading Company is closing in on the old pirates, who are going around, including Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) who is only in on it so he can rescue his father's soul, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) who appears to be becoming the most trustworthy out the lot, and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) who has become quite feisty. they are trying to join the pirate armies together so they can battle the EITC bullyboys. Meanwhile, Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is trapped by Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) in his own version of hell but he soon finds his old friends and joins them in bringing the bullies down.
No way was I sitting through this in the cinema. After the under-whelming last instalment which scuppered the memory of the excellent first film, I did not fancy spending nearly three hours twitching and fidgeting through what was bound to be an almost equally bad prequel.
Now I've finally seen it on DVD (free to watch it at my own pace), I guess I can't complain too much. Anyone who sat through The Return of the King can't either, because the pace is nowhere near as slow and there's none of that nonsense with the bits where you think it's ended and then it hasn't. Jack Sparrow is still quintessentially Johnny Depp's role, and although he looks a little creaky here, he still tries to give it his all. Knightley is good as feisty support, and Keith Richards makes his cameo as Sparrow's dad but Bloom is still terminally wooden and there's not much more to the cast than that.
It's a stylish, slick, polished effort with a lot of flair put into it. But this series really went downhill after the first one. **