Rollicking good fun...some wonderful escapes...but a bit overlong...

Rating: 7/10 (2 August 2006)

Darker than the first film, and even more episodic, is PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN with Johnny Depp reprising his role as Captain Jack Sparrow. He holds the spotlight most of the time even though he is up against some of the most fantastic looking creatures a make-up man ever devised. Hideous as they are, it's hard to look away when they come on the screen. The cinematography is stunning, but the fast clip of scenes is overdone and gets wearying after awhile.
ORLANDO BLOOM and KEIRA KNIGHTLEY do nicely as hero and heroine, the sort of pair that harks back to the days of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Miss Knightley has a beautiful face but not quite the warmth of personality this sort of heroine should have. Orlando Bloom looks good with a sword but needs more work with his acting abilities.
The busy, overly orchestrated score by Hans Zimmer pounds away at the music in what must be the most overwritten score of the year. Dialog manages to be clear enough except for Naomi Harris who mumbles some inexplicable heavily accented words as the exotic Tia Dalma that should have required sub-titles for all their blurriness.
Most fun are the chase scenes wherein Bloom and others are locked inside some sort of a rolling wheel-barrel--but all of the special effects are handsomely staged for maximum effect. And surely, an army of stuntmen must have been kept busy on the sound stages for all of the action scenes.
Depp's character is given some questionable things to do. His moral compass is not quite what it ought to be, even if he is the anti-hero of this swashbuckling epic. And much of the action scenes could have been trimmed to bring the story in at a length less than two-and-a-half hours. Perhaps with some of the action trimmed, there would have been time for more emphasis on exposition, especially for those who never saw the first film.
Aside from these minor reservations, it's highly enjoyable entertainment for those wanting to escape the summer heat and looking for more than two hours of pirate fantasy with stunning special effects and photography.