Jon Monsarrat review: Vastly over-rated, like The Mummy

Rating: 4/10 (13 July 2006)

I love action movies, even if they're stupid, but I really can't say enough bad things about Pirates of the Caribbean Part 2.
Let's start with the complete lack of chemistry between Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. Or Bloom's character and his father. Or Keira's character and her father. Or everyone and Jack Sparrow. Sparrow staggers around the film like he's drunk or just deranged. It's supposed to be cute but it makes him an anti-hero and it just didn't work for me.
The special effects are totally misused. They could have looked creepy and made me frightened. But the undersea Davey Jones monsters look comical instead, and not in a good way, rather in a way that pulled me out of the movie so I could not really engage with it.
To add to that, the plot lines don't make any sense. People are always pledging loyalty and servitude to each other, running around after various artifacts, and so forth. At one point, without spoiling the plot, there's a dice game involving pledges and oaths that made no sense to me whatsoever. It was so complicated and there's such a large cast of characters I really couldn't figure anything out. Everyone's fighting everyone else too, and it's like they can't decide whether to fight or be friends or fight again. The implausible character decisions combined with all the superstitious muckety-muck reminds me very much of the film The Mummy. "Let's get the golden chalice into the water of doom before the clock ticks midnight because the silver bat of Davey Jones needs to feed on the insects of horror". OK, whatever, people.
Finally, instead of ending the film with some kind of closure, it turns out the entire movie is just a setup for the next film. I wanted to leave half-way through but my date kept me there, hoping the film would get better. Unfortunately, it doesn't get any better. If you go and you don't like the first 10 minutes, just leave. Or better yet, stay away.
Who should see this film:
-- Nobody, except maybe kids because they're too naive to know junk when they see it
-- Anyone who enjoyed Independence Day and The Mummy, you're good people just entirely lacking in taste I'll give this film a 4 out of 10, and it would have been lower except I did enjoy a small fraction of the humor and action.