Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (8 July 2006)

At the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, I remembered a line I had once read in a book: "Disney is not in the business of making movies. Disney is in the business of making money." This film demonstrates that fairly clearly--largely because of it's non-ending ending: at about 2 1/2 hours in, with things looking dire, with an important character seeming lost, I was thinking: "All right, how are they going to tie this up?" Well, they don't: they fade out, and this sequel to the marvelous first Pirates of the Caribbean becomes little more than a tease for the third film they've promised us. I know other film franchises have done the same: the Lord of the Rings series, the dual Star Wars trilogies (although the first set of three movies were each satisfying in their own right.) You would think, however, for the full price of a ticket, the filmmakers would be able to bring the current film to a satisfying close--but they don't.
Aside from that, this film is a pale shadow of the first. Its opening--in which Will Turner's and Elizabeth Swann's planned wedding is interrupted when the two are arrested for their part in helping Jack Sparrow escape at the end of the first PotC and then offered a deal, their lives in exchange for tracking down Sparrow--is creaky, as if the writers couldn't take the time or expend the effort to give us a proper set-up. From there, the story becomes confusing (even if you have seen the first, if you see this one, you should watch the earlier film just before going to the second, as characters pop up and the filmmakers clearly expect us to remember who they are from the first film to understand their significance in their scenes in this film) as the filmmakers are clearly interested in only providing the slimmest of threads to move the story from one big, rollicking scene to the next one--at the expense of clarity and an interesting structure.
There are scenes that are fun to watch, and Depp as Sparrow is as good as he was in the first (where his performance earned a deserved Oscar nomination), but you should do yourself a favor: see it at a bargain showing: half a movie doesn't deserve full price for a ticket.