This movie should have been left in Davy Jones' locker...

Rating: 4/10 (16 December 2006)

Let me preface my review by saying this: I was a huge fan of POTC:COTBP. I watched it a countless number of times, I knew all the lines, I loved every nuance - pretty much, I was a POTC nerd. That being said, I was sorely disappointed with this movie. Maybe it was because I loved the first movie so much and I had such high expectations (that deep down I knew wouldn't be met) that I didn't like the sequel. Everything I was hoping they wouldn't do... they did: they recycled every joke from the first movie and I think there were a total of 4 new ones... that's terrible. Captain Jack Sparrow acted so differently from the first movie as well - whereas he used to be a conniving pirate, now he was just clumsy and cowardly without that edge he used to have. Elizabeth and Will were both annoying, and the only character I was happy to see was Norrington because I was rather amused by his whole drunken rampage. This movie was pretty much made as a way to market on the success of the first movie - and if that was their intention, they certainly succeeded - this movie was box office gold. But in terms of really making an incredible movie that could stand on its own - well, then they failed. There were a lot of unnecessarily long sequences (and believe me, I didn't think the first movie was too long even though a lot of people thought it should have been shortened by an hour). It also reneged on the whole idea of Bootstrap Bill being dead, mostly because the audience was interested in his character. That was another cop-out. The bottom line is, if you don't have any fresh material, don't make a new movie. Period.