"Dead Man's Chest" starts out great but somewhere near the end it loses steam and becomes ultimately disappointing.

Rating: 7/10 (8 July 2006)

In the sequel to the 2003 hit, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny "The Man" Depp) is being haunted by Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), a ghost pirate who wants Jack's soul unless Jack can get him 100 souls in exchange for his own. To make matters worse both Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) must join Jack's voyage in order to steal Jack's compass for Commodore Norrington in exchange for their lives. A decent however disappointing sequel ensues
Right off the bat, I am going to state that I am a huge fan of Johnny Depp. He is my favorite actor and I think he is great at every role he plays. I also really enjoyed the first Pirates of the Caribbean film which was a great and unique summer blockbuster that I personally own on DVD. With that being said, I have been looking forward to "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" for many months now and when I finally saw it on opening day, I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.
Its hard to say what went wrong with "Dead Man's Chest" because I have talked to several people about the film before writing this review including my girlfriend and some of my friends at work and no one hated the film, but just felt disappointed by it. From what I gathered people found this movie disappointing for two reasons which I will address as my review continues below.
Personally, I found the first 2/3 of the film to be every bit as good as the original film however when the film begins to show Davy Jones as a major threat, is where I feel the film goes down hill. The problem with the film at this point is that it begins to go special effects happy and shows this huge battle involving an octopus and every person who I asked about the film said this scene never seemed to end. The scene in my opinion reminded me a lot of the 3rd Matrix film, "Matrix Revolutions" which as we all know wasn't as good as we hoped. The scene I am referring to is the battle of Zion in "Matrix Revolutions" because that scene never seemed to end and neither did the scene in "Dead Man's Chest" where Jack Sparrow and the gang were battling the octopus. This is the first main problem and if this scene was cut down to say 10 minutes it would have worked quite well however it was overlong and became repetitive and boring.
The second problem is the ending which basically without giving anything away leaves the audience unsatisfied and makes the entire second film seem like a marketing scheme in order to see the 3rd film. Personally even though the ending upset me to no end and left me wanting more, I know for a fact I will be in the theater when the 3rd one opens next year because I am curious to find out what happens. But this may not work for anyone because when everyone saw the 2nd Matrix film and was disappointed, the 3rd one was very poorly attended at the theater. I hope this doesn't happen with Pirates like it did with the Matrix but who knows. All the director Gore Verbinski had to do was create an ending that didn't seem like a tie-in ending and he could have literally made millions happy.
Other then those two things I really can't say there was anything else wrong with the film. I still loved Captain Jack Sparrow and as I previously stated I thought that most of the film was great up until the last 40 minutes or so which just seemed so drawn out and repetitive. Seeing the fact that I really loved the first film and I am a big fan of Johnny Depp I was expecting a great sequel and although the sequel wasn't horrible or unwatchable by any means, it just didn't live up to the greatness of the first film. The first film is probably a solid 8 out of 10 maybe a 9 if you want to give it credit for being a solid summer blockbuster however "Dead Man's Chest" is a very weak 7 because the film just seems to never end and when it does end it just leaves the audience feeling cheated.
I will recommend this film because I think it was a decent sequel however be forewarned that it does not live up to the hype nor the first film. I am crossing my fingers for the 3rd one and hoping that the final installment will be outstanding and blow the other two films out of the water (no pun intended). Go see "Dead Man's Chest" for Capitan Jack because he is still without a doubt the best part of the film and is part of all the best scenes in this decent however disappointing sequel.
MovieManMenzel's final rating for "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" is a 7 out of 10.