The ultimate indulgence of Bruckheimer, Verbinski and Ted&Terry in bloated excess...

Rating: 4/10 (6 August 2006)

(Minor spoilers ahead, but nothing crucial)
Submitted below is open letter to Philadelphia Weekly film critic Sean Burns re: "Lost at Sea" negative review of POTC2...
Dear Mr. Burns, I read your movie review of POTC2 a week after I took the roommate, his younger sister & her boyfriend to see the movie today.
I concur with your complaint that the film drags on too long in the last paragraph.
Your statement "Does anybody really need a Pirates of the Caribbean movie that clocks in at five minutes longer than GoodFellas?" nails the point with a perfectly timed hammer slam into the lumber of Hollywood drudgery production.
I found the particular scenes excessively expository after the half hour. It become so drowned in heavy doses of character & plot exposition (courtesy of the screenwriters' mistaken belief that more bloat equals significant development while adding absolutely nothing to advance the plot elements and characters' positions) I drifted into a relaxing nap that last from 20 minutes to maybe an hour.
The persons I was with did not notice me dozing at all. Their reaction range from pleasant delight to fidgety boredom in the ponderous middle to spectacle at Kraken battle sequence towards the end.
I woke up the instant Captain Jack Sparrow and his followers land on the beach to locate the chest. That's when I become fairly entertained by the action spectacles, despite my missing out on the character introduction and development of a strange bearded character who follow Jack and his comrades.
The persons & I agree the cliffhanger ending was tacky to the point of absurdity in contrived plot twist, but we'll reserve our partial judgment when we see the final film.
Overall POTC2 is a very mediocre movie. Your final grade of a C is perhaps a little generous. I would give it a C minus or at worst D+
I normally hate "escapist" movies based on absence of substance, but the first movie was a pleasant surprise that provide good entertainment without insulting the audience's intelligence.
Johnny Depp "owned" the character in the first movie, but this second time around he became so annoying in overplaying the character to schlock that the welcome not only has worn out but shredded.
For that I am very disappointed that I wasted $5.00 (cheap) Saturday matinÃ©e ticket to see this bloated film that should have been trimmed to a sustainable "less is more" length while retaining the cohesive story in a brisk pace.