Far too long

Rating: Null/10 (11 August 2006)

This is not a terrible film, but it does disappoint. To be honest, its just far too long and repetitive. The film essentially consists of a series of endless chases, hammy swordfights and the odd pout from the beautiful Keira Knightley. The film struggled to hold kids attention in the cinema where I saw it: they were in and out like tramps on a kipper! The film is oddly paced, with a bit of slow, dull speech followed by what seems like an eternal 'caper' of some sort. The plot revolves around Captain Jack (even more over-the-top than film one) having to repay a debt to Davey Jones, a squid-like pirate blah blah blah. The film ends on a cliffhanger which cries out 'money spinning third film on the way' as blatantly as could be. There is no reason why this shouldn't have been around 90-100 mins long. Tightly edited it would have bounced along at a decent pace and would have been more enjoyable. The special effects were reasonable I suppose. The sea monster style pirates looked interesting, but the great cracken beast which acts as the film's scary element (for kids) looked rather pathetic and was clearly superimposed onto the screen, but such is the way with CGI nonsense. Film one was harmless pap and this is too. A shame really. I would admit, however, that the odd scene will make you laugh. At the start, Captain Jack escapes from a coffin in a pretty amusing manner...but if that's a film's highlight...oh dear!