All Swash, No Buckle

Rating: 6/10 (9 July 2006)

As the climatic conclusion of this Pirates sequel approaches, there is an especially thrilling three-sword brawl between three of the main characters. They all fight for the same treasure, which many have killed for, given its value, but the duelers don't seem intent on killing each other. In fact, none of the attacks seem aimed towards killing, but rather towards grandstanding and making an ostentatious show of one's ability to balance on an ever-spinning waterwheel.
Thus is the spirit behind this inferior sequel that seems more intent on keeping us in awe at the stunts and/or special effects than giving us a cohesive story we can follow. The thrills are in surplus, true, but we still leave the theater with lots of unanswered questions, which I daresay will have to wait until Pirates 3.
But maybe I got my hopes up too high. Not an hour prior to my screening I had finished the first Pirates in hopes of refreshing the details of the story. Instead, I sat through Dead Man's Chest with disappointment where there otherwise would have been a more overwhelming excitement. It may have been the comparison to a superior film, but with all bias aside Dead Man's Chest crosses into the upper echelon far fewer times than its predecessor.
Not to say that it never does, though. In a complex and sometimes confusing webs of plots and character motivations, some brilliant and suspenseful moments break the surface, especially a jolt moment that would probably startle me again and a tense game of do-or-die Yahtzee. Such scenes are fueled by the improved performances from Orlando Bloom as Will Turner and Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann, and of course Johnny Depp's ebullient Jack Sparrow. All are seeking a chest containing the heart of Davey Jones, which, for some reason, enables the possessor to control the seas and thus the wealth that traverses it. Will wants it to save Elizabeth from a greedy lord's bum rap, Elizabeth wants it to save will from eternal servitude on the decks of Davey Jones' ship the Flying Dutchman, and Jack wants it to avoid paying his soul to Jones as a debt owed to him. Enter some cannibals, a giant octopus, and some characters of questionable origin and purpose, and you've got something decent enough to sit through, even for 2+ hours.
The final third of the trilogy may make everything clear, just as the last half of the first movie explained the storyline to a satisfactory degree, but this time the anticipation is not exactly killing me. Maybe next time it will not be so set up for a letdown, but one thing is for sure: Jack's got a lot more fighting to do. Savvy?