Is it better than the first?

Rating: 9/10 (6 July 2006)

Yep.
I think the critics have done an "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" on this one. They say it's "overstuffed", "overlong", "over-the-top", over this, over that. I've seen a sequel to surprisingly old-fashioned modern film. It was called "The Mummy Returns". From what I understand, "The Legend of Zorro" is in the same league. What elements from the originals were daring and adventurous were tamed and rushed in the sequels. Not so here. "Dead Man's Chest" is a FAR superior film to "Curse of the Black Pearl", a film that leaves you breathless and giddy with excitement after seeing it, not with a headache.
I think one of the things they got right was to take a leaf out of what Johnny Depp did with the original film. He took a role in a genre that had "black marks" written all over it, a somewhat bland adventure film that he tizzied and teased to the point where he became the focal point of the movie. Add to that the idea of "cursed pirates" and you had a movie. "Dead Man's Chest" takes these elements which worked and runs with them. This film is to pirate movies and seafaring mythology what "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was to Saturday MatinÃ©e Serials. And what "Kill Bill" was to 1970s Blaxploitation, Martial Arts films and Spaghetti Westerns (Fascinating concoction, that one). It is sneaky and subversive, as Pirates need to be, and the heroes are the least interesting element in it. And it is rip-roaring, hilarious entertainment from the first frame to the last, the most glorious pure entertainment since the Indiana Jones movies.
And y'know what? I knew it would be that. I just knew it. Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow is the most devilish rogue in the movies in quite some time, a character that was born for the movies, like Indiana Jones, like James Bond, like Mad Max. It's so relieving to have something with such old-fashioned sensibilities as opposed to the quasi-religious tone of a great deal of recent blockbusters (mostly comic book films). What Johnny Depp brought to the original was the sense of ridiculous that he knew the movie had in it. And now everyone else knows that too. What a surprise (SPOILER) to find Commodore Norrington returns in such an unexpected manner! What a trip to have Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Swann engaging in such playful banter with Sparrow! What a gruesome spactacle of Monty Python irreverence is the confection of new creatures, pirates, ships and situations to be found here!
Critics have been spoiled with their blockbusters lately. They've had the gall to be based on great pieces of literature or on deeply mythologised comic book heroes. Great directors like Sam Raimi and Bryan Singer have leant their art-house sensibilities to them and given them more passion and story. This is not a story: This is a thrill-ride. It knows it's a thrill-ride. We know it's a thrill ride. And it succeeds in thrilling us without insulting our intelligence. What did they want? Something deeply felt and serious like a lot of the "major" blockbusters? Or perhaps something that was REALLY dumb like "Fantastic Four" or any of those idiotic rev-head movies. This is old-fashioned, red-blooded entertainment. I think they've forgotten how to deal with movies like this. This is the kind of movie Robert Zemeckis would have directed in the 1980's, and what's wrong with that? What an absolute pure delight! Every blockbuster should be like this one! I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is probably one of the best movies of the year.