Adventure, Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Johnny Depp, what more do you need?

Rating: 8/10 (7 July 2006)

Summer blockbusters are made for pure entertainment. And over the years Hollywood has learned that entertainment can originate from a lot of different elements, visual spectacles, big name celebrities, romance, unique and unforgettable characters, comedies, action, or sometimes just a plain good story that doesn't need any other polishing to make it fantastic. It's like mixing a cocktail with different ingredients. Yet no one likes to drink the same cocktail over and over again so the difficulty is to put in the same ingredients only to create something that is better than the first glass. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is probably the only movie that achieved such goal so far in this summer race.
Not only does it have all of the elements above, it also succeeds in lifting the whole scale and expectation of adventure genre to a brand new level. And at the same time, not straying from the tone of the first one that everyone had enjoyed. It is something more than an extension, it made the audience felt like the first movie was merely a tip of the iceberg, that there's way more that's underneath and so many territories worthy of exploring creatively.
Johnny Depp's crowd-pleasing, original take of CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow is at it's best here, successfully bringing the character to the very core of the movie. Orlando Bloom's Will and Keira Knightley's Elizabeth is unforgettable. The supporting casts of pirates each have their own purposes and bounce off very well against one another. Bill Nighy's Davy Jones is a villain with soul and CGI only made the character more convincing. Something I haven't approved of CGI ever since Gollum from LOTR.
I won't go into the story because you can't really explain it without spoilers but let's just say it doesn't wait for you to think because there's so much going on at once. It's usually confusing for the audience when there's a lot of strings to tie in three hours yet they manage to pull it together alright. Each character is there for a purpose and they don't waste time. It's hard nowadays to see that in summer blockbuster. The ending amplifies the anticipation it had build up for the third movie while the audience were enjoying this one.
However it is still a continuation of POTC1, so it's best if you're familiar with the first one to enjoy every minute of this sequel. Overall it's not only best summer blockbuster I've seen so far, it's also the best movie that lived up to my expectation this year.