Not that great, fairly disappointed

Rating: 4/10 (9 July 2006)

I was looking forward to this movie quite a bit, having enjoyed the first one immensely and watched it countless times. However, as I left the theater I felt pretty darn let down. The first one had an excellent plot which kept me interested towards the end, mainly because it had a few action sequences that were really good coupled with some excellent dialog that really drew you into the plot. However, it seems as if in Dead Man's Chest, the producers neglected the dialog/plot (which is disappointingly simplistic) and tried to make the movie all action. In all fairness, the special effects during these sequences were absolutely superb (amoung the best I have ever seen), yet they seemed like they were simply a Zorro movie with really good effects. When I say Zorro, I mean that most of the things in the action sequences are just overly contrived (etc. something falls, sets off a chain reaction, and sequence is changed in ways it never could have been in real life). The plot itself, as was mentioned earlier, was somewhat disappointing. The first movie had some of the coolest villains I have ever seen (the skeletons), however, the villains in this movie are not scary but just kinda repulsive, like a "whats this dead animal doing out here in 100 degree heat" repulsive. Finally, while the first movie had this air of sickening realization that curses and stuff actually exist, since this is already confirmed even at the start of the first one, the world it takes place in just seems like Neverland in Peter Pan where paranormal stuff is in fact the norm. My advice? See it, but don't let the reputation of the first one sweep you away in this air of "I don't care about all these details, I want the sequel to be good so I will make sure and bubble on about it to all my friends." Just take an open mind when you go see it and be accepting of the fact that some sequels do in fact, fall miserably short of the original.