Loss of Focus

Rating: 2/10 (31 December 2006)

I can't comment on the ending of this film as I didn't watch all of it. The thing that turned me off the most was the whipping and the general cruelty. I was also annoyed with the ragged construction. The Black Pearl starts off with Jack Sparrow's daring escape. Dead Man's Chest also has an escape at the beginning, but the difference is that the escape in the Black Pearl added to the plot and built character. The escape in DMC has nothing to do with the plot or characters at all, it was just exciting filler. And I suppose it was supposed to be funny in a Wile E. Coyote sort of way when the cage full of prisoners falls into the gorge, but when you think about it, it's quite gross to think of men trapped in a cage plunging to their deaths. In The Black Pearl the plot centered around Jack Sparrow's quest to get his ship back and all the other character's motivations centered on that. Dead Man's Chest has four plot lines, they are connected but have four different motivations: Sparrow wants to be free of his curse; William Turner wants to resolve his relationship with his father and save Elizabeth; Elizabeth wants to find Will Turner; and the East India Company wants Jack's compass for their own nefarious ends. So the whole thing has lost its focus. Also missing was Jack Sparrow's cleverness. In The Black Pearl, Jack Sparrow's commandeering of the Interceptor was great fun and very imaginative - there is nothing like that imagination in Dead Man's Chest. Overall a great disappointment.