Excellent, but it keeps on cranking the laugh machine formula

Rating: 9/10 (7 July 2006)

On the whole a really good movie, plenty of action with giggles and gut laughs mixed in, I'd recommend it to anyone. It was true to the slash-stab-laugh formula of the first Pirates of the Caribbean and it's much better than some of the other Hollywood junk that's come out recently. However, at times it feels that they are trying really really hard to make you laugh about the ridiculousness of Jack, and his bumbling crew. And whereas the first movie could be more or less placed in a historical context this one is definitely moving towards the fantasy side of things. In the first, as long as you could swallow the idea of the Aztec gold then the most absurd thing was the ghost crew. This one... well you've seen the posters of Davy Jones aka Octopus-face... yeah the rest of his crew is like that too. Oh and if you're going because you like gnarly pirates then you're probably going to be disappointed. However, those minor objections aside I really enjoyed it and you probably will too.