Dead Mans Chest - Empire Strikes Back

Rating: 10/10 (19 July 2006)

Yes, I am making this comparison. However one rates the pirate trilogy and the Star Wars universe in relation to one another, the fact remains that as A New Hope (or Star Wars as it were) were a great and thoroughly entertaining space opera with a good and classic adventure, if not very complex, so was 'the Curse of the Black Pearl' the same thing as far as pirate movies were concerned. And then came Empire Strikes Back, and suddenly the feisty happy-ending mood of the predecessor proved to have been just the presentation of the whole setting, a skipping across the surfaces of deep, dangerous waters.
Exactly so with Dead Mans Chest. Which is why (being in my time a devout Empire Strikes Back-disciple) I declare this movie to surpass its predecessor, being darker, more complex and more evil, with considerably more character development, moments of doubt and nastiness, while at the same time being still as hysterically funny as the first. It shows right down to the editing and framing of the picture, which have clearly received more attention than the first. Yes, it is an adventure-story, and so the characters are in many ways archetypes. But they are interesting archetypes, and there are flesh on their bones. As per usual Johnny Depp just delivers everything one could have hoped for (can anyone remember a movie in which he doesn't?). I mean, the guy is just a genius, period. Keira actually impressed me a little in this one. She has definitely matured, and her Miss Swann is starting to behave in complex ways and having doubts and considerations in many directions. Orlando Bloom is a bit slower, but there is a refreshing self-irony in his performance as the Skywalkeresque Will Turner this time - probably also thanks to the writers who gave him a bit more to work with this time. Stellan Skarsgaard and Bill Nighy, being both accomplished actors, delivers the goods, but I must say that the greatest and most pleasant surprise came from Jack Davenport and the character-development of (now ex-commodore) Norrington. Being a woman I'll start in the primitive end of it and exclaim : my God, the guy is actually hot without that soft-ice-wig! But apart from that I was delighted in the extreme by the way which Davenport manages to show us a person who is still, stripped of his civilized finish, is STILL RECOGNIZABLY THE SAME PERSON (this coming to attention by e.g. his still very dry English gentleman-wits which somehow seems to be still left). Norrington-in-the-mud is definitely proving to be a much more interesting and deep guy than he let one in 'The Curse...' In a way he is the antrophomorphic illustration of the difference between that very movie and this one. The surface of the sea may look nice and blue but underneath, the Kraken awaits!