A disappointment

Rating: 5/10 (25 December 2006)

It's always harder for a sequel of a popular movie to succeed, though these days the studios generally get it $$right$$, but After Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, which I was keenly looking forward to, was a distinct disappointment.
Same characters but less character.
Very slow start to the movie, and flagging interest throughout. The waterwheel skit was funny, but almost all else, includes Davey Jones and even Johnny Depp and Keira Knightly, sort of blended into the background instead of leaping out as they did in Pearl. The story overall dragged and failed to engage.
Davey Jones was marvellous to look at but was introduced unceremoniously (a shot of his stump) when he could have had a much more spectacular and mysterious introduction.
There was nothing to match the pirates being shown partly as skeletons as the moon shone on them, nor their fantastic underwater trek as in the original POTC.
The heart, apparently a key to the next movie, looked like a bit of scrap meat from the butcher. I did view the movie on a 26" TV, but even so the heart was noticeably unimpressive, in many respects hard to even discern as a heart.
Hoping for better with Pirates III.
5/10