Faintly passable but nowhere near as much fun as the original

Rating: 5/10 (14 August 2006)

STAR RATING: ***** Jodie Marsh **** Michelle Marsh *** Kym Marsh ** Rodney Marsh * Hackney Marsh
Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) are about to celebrate their wedding day- when suddenly they are arrested for aiding in the escape of pirate Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp.) Now facing the death penalty themselves, Will is bargained a pardon- if he can locate a map that will show the key to unlocking a pirates wet dream of treasure for the East India Trading Company. With no choice but to agree he sets off to find Jack and locate the gold- but Jack's got problems of his own, namely an unpaid debt to feared pirate Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) that will see him cursed to eternal damnation in hell if it is not settled.
Following the massive success of the original POTC in 2003, the sequel was just screaming out to be seen. But, riding arrogantly high on the commercial and critical success of the last film, this time round it appears the original film's director, Gore Verbinski, has got carried away with himself and made a very self indulgent sequel. Overlong, messy and convoluted, Dead Man's Chest simply doesn't sail the shaky tides as well as it's predecessor, creating an uneven and unfocused film that fails to sustain an interest during it's lengthy running time. I don't think I fell asleep at any point, but there was a period where it was as if I simply switched off and a large segment of the film just got blanked out in my mind.
The cast are back on (mostly) good form. Johnny Depp once again crafts a very engaging and enthralling character in Jack Sparrow, a wise-cracking, charismatic rogue in everyone's bad books and Keira Knightley also returns as the heroine Elizabeth Swann, strikingly beautiful and very agreeable in the role. In the main cast, only Bloom fails to strike a chord, rather wooden and bland as the main hero. The film boasts quite an impressive supporting cast in general, from Nighy to Mackenzie Crook and Johnathon Pryce (wasted) as Elizabeth's father. But there's a weird sub-plot of them all double-crossing each other and doing anything to come out on top, as opposed to the last film where they all shared a jolly, merry camaraderie together. The film ends leaving the room open perfectly for the next film in the series but in doing so fails to provide a satisfactory ending to an already piecemeal and lacklustre story.
In between everything, the special effects and action sequences have quite a neat flare to them and the script madly races along trying to keep everything above water. But where the first film set sail with a mighty roar, the first sequel seems to get lost at the Bermuda Triangle. **