If You Want MORE, You've GOT IT!!!

Rating: 9/10 (5 August 2006)

It's pretty much a rule written in stone about sequels: if you want to be as successful with a follow-up as you were with the original, you MUST raise your game. If you had glamour the first time around, it has to be MORE glamorous. The suspense must be MORE suspenseful, the gore gorier, the flash flashier...well, you get the picture.
With the track record of such gems as INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and STAR TREK 2: THE WRATH OF KHAN, I was hoping that the creative crew behind the first PIRATES would bear all of these in mind, and join them in their glorious achievements, instead of coming up with something as downright awful as, say, SPEED 2. I needn't have worried.
The magic is definitely back, and DEAD MAN'S CHEST is probably the best sequel you will see all year. If MORE is what you've been craving, you'll have a full belly before this one is even half-over!
No time is wasted jumping right into where BLACK PEARL left off. A morose Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) thinks she's been left at the altar by fiancée Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), but such is not the case. Soon she, Will and even her father, Gov. Weatherbee Swann (Jonathan Pryce) will all be arrested for aiding and abetting one Capt. Jack Sparrow in Part One. But there's more treachery afoot here than even a pirate could dream up. Certain "agents" representing the East India Trading Company want possession of Jack's mystic compass. The compass is the key to finding yet another key...the one that opens up that object of fabled myth, Davy Jones' locker. And anyone who can grab what's inside the locker can ultimately control the Seven Seas.
And that's just going into what THEY want. Jack Sparrow wants the key to the locker to escape a fate far worse than death...an eternity of servitude as one of Jones' crustacean-encrusted crew, on board the hellish ghost ship The Flying Dutchman, to fulfill a debt that Jack never repaid. (BIG surprise.) So yes, MORE story is only the tip of the iceberg here. Bloom and Knightley as the prettiest characters in the cast have much more to do, but they also go through more changes. A lot of their naiveté has gone since their last misadventures with Sparrow, and a lot more will disappear before the movie's end. It's rather refreshing to see that even the "good guys" here can have some conflicted moral dilemmas to work through.
And yes, dear Jack. What was shocking before has now become normal, even almost endearing, as this swashbuckling stew of Keith Richards, Pepe le Pew and maybe even a little Prince thrown in for extra flavor, slashes and sashays his way from one predicament to the next with a boozy, blustery bonhomie.
Not to be outdone is Bill Nighy as the fearsome Captain Jones, who projects both melancholy and menace through some of the ookiest CGI layers since Andy Serkis got behind Gollum. You won't see a more frightening or fascinating villain this summer. And new addition Naomie Harris (28 DAYS LATER) as the eerie swamp witch Tia Dalma, sinks her teeth into the pivotal role like it was a seven-course gourmet meal. She HAS to come back for Part Three!
I so want to go over how great each returning cast member and character was, but I'll let you plumb the depths of those surprises and pleasures yourself. Gore Verbinski, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and Jerry Bruckheimer will be happy to know that their sequel definitely goes into the Hall of Fame with the other heavy hitters, (and that's before you even take into account the dizzying box-office returns.) It does run a little long at over two hours, but for pure entertainment, you won't want to miss this one. And if what you're already getting wasn't enough, wait until you get a gander at the gasp-inducing ending. Not since EMPIRE STRIKES BACK or the first KILL BILL has there been a climax that has you climbing the walls and yelling "NOOOO! What happens NEXT???" See ya in about two years, when they answer THAT question...