"Do you think he plans it all out, or just makes it up as he goes along?"

Rating: 8/10 (13 February 2019)

I had to watch this film in segments because of time constraints, so by the time it was over I didn't realize it had run almost three hours. I have to admit, I got a kick out of just about the entire movie, though there were times when the story seemed to get shifted around and it got a bit tenuous to follow. Watching the 'Pirates' films out of sequence doesn't help either I imagine, but I take them as I get them.
It's funny, but I remember the very first time I ever heard of the concept of Davey Jones' Locker. It was in the mid Fifties when I was a kid reading comic books, and there was a story in a Mighty Mouse comic that had a story about Davey Jones' Locker. I can't remember what it was about, but there was something about the idea that was ingrained in my memory ever since. I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything to do about Davey shepherding dead souls over to the other side though.
There's a lot of swashbuckling action in this picture, and a lot of well placed humor as well. As usual, Johnny Depp delivers as Captain Jack Sparrow, although he came across as almost a secondary character in this particular story. More of the action centers around Captain Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). Supporting actors also play a significant part, like Chow Yun-Fat as Captain Sao-Feng, Naomie Harris as Tia Dalma, and the pair of humorous crew members of The Black Pearl, Pintel (Lee Arenberg) and Rigetti (Mackenzie Crook). Those two guys showed up in some absurd situations that were made even more comical by their presence. Even the animals get in on the fun, with timely appearances by a parrot and a squirrel monkey, who get their share of laughs as well.