Disney offers little and delivers nothing, starring Johnny Depp

Rating: 3/10 (7 July 2006)

A sequel so quickly rushed out after the huge success of the first is always a worrying thing, especially when an actor who's character was killed off in the first film is rumoured to have been involved in the production of the feature.
The film however, promises to deliver as much as the previous one, a rollicking and swashbuckling affair with an attract cast. A brilliant Johnny Depp led a funny and well written adventure piece, and even if it was not high art, it was just plain great fun. Good special effects by the ever-trying-yet-never-succeeding people at Disney studios worked wonders as well. This time however, the film struggles to find a plot that makes sense, and as the two hours drags along, questioning your motivation to view Gore Verbinski's bore fest, you realize that the rumours about a third film are true, and that the current film will not have a resolution, satisfying or not.
A quick surmise of the story; Will Turner (Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Knightly) are arrested on their wedding day and forced to hand over a bewitched compass for the owner/boss of the East India Trading Company. Turner searches out Captain Jack Sparrow, the owner of the special compass, who still owes his soul to Captain Davey Jones (Nighy) (you may recall he owed his soul to Geoffrey Rush's character in the first one as well). We are then sailing on rough seas being chased the Cracken and other demented sea creatures/sailors which all ends with a voodoo witch doctor telling them the information all the viewers know, there will be no ending for this film.
Even Depp seems bored in this film, bringing very little comedy or quirkiness into Jack Sparrow, the main reason for the success of the first film. He runs through the motions, while Bloom does little more than look his normal handsome self. Even Knightly offers little as the damsel-come-pirate-come-damsel. Nighy however is energetic as the evil, octopus like bad man, like Rush in the previous film, loves playing the baddie. The special effects are also a rather disappointing let down, with director Verbanksi failing in that department, re-hashing bad clichés rather than mastering good ones.
This film may excite the children, its primary audience, but leaves very little else for other viewers. The laughs are few and far between this film, and most of the time you will be thinking, 'What in the world is happening?'