Improving a little on the first entry, Dead Man's Chest is not dead on arrival.

Rating: 6/10 (25 August 2019)

The stakes have been upped for "Dead Man's Chest", the 2006 sequel to the immensely popular, though I thought generally underwhelming, 2003 effort "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl": said Black Pearl, a haunted pirate galleon, has been replaced by the even more efficient Flying Dutchman; Geoff Rush's un-dead captain, Barbossa, and his motley crew of zombies have been replaced by a sadistic freak-show led by Bill Nighy, and the appearance of several new characters, not the mention the fleshing out of one or two old supporting ones, gives the film a broader sense of both scope and appeal.
The film is, I suppose, little more than a romp around a series of photogenic tropical islands, but is never-the-less good, clean honest fun; a sort of physical incarnation of all those games of Lego pirates & soldiers you might have played when you were younger on bases decked out to look like desert islands or within the confines of stone-carved fortresses you'd first have to build from the instructions. There were swords; muskets; treasure chests; an assortment of characters and palm trees housing monkeys you could clip on at funny angles.
"Dead Man's Chest" essentially covers the plights of two separate lead characters, a good looking clean-cut civilian with an honest trade, in Will Turner (Bloom), and a roguish, smooth-talking pirate in Jack Sparrow (Depp), whom nobody ever seems to truly get along with within the confines of the film yet nevertheless everybody loved within the public domain after his debut in the 2003 original. In the Bermudan town of Port Royal, stronghold it would appear of the British navy some two hundred years ago, and certainly in an alternate universe, Turner and his love, Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) are arrested on grounds of treason for helping a condemned man escape justice. The local governor hatches a plan to let them both go, but only on the grounds that Turner venture forth and bring back a particular compass belonging to Sparrow...
Sparrow, meanwhile, is busily making his own escape from a gruesome island prison which seems to be the sort of place that locks prisoners up and forgets about them, an early indication that the film is unafraid of going to some fairly nasty places. He is introduced as a resourceful chap prone to bursts of oddball comedy, playing dead and getting away in one of the many coffins prison employees are tossing away into the sea (something which calls to mind James Bond's escape from behind enemy lines in "Octopussy") before rather mercilessly shooting open the casket and wiping out a bird that had followed his vessel out to sea. Not too long after this, he encounters an island occupied by a tribe of cannibals who elevate him to a God-like status - a mere reflection of what the public did to him after Depp's initial performance.
As Turner seeks Sparrow's compass, Sparrow himself seeks the key to a certain treasure chest to whit only his compass will guide him. Hot on his heels for mostly unrelated reasons is Davy Jones (Nighy) himself and a crew of un-dead body-horror inclined psychopaths who look to settle a debt with him. And what a crew they are: barnacle and rot-covered fish-like creatures, wavy tentacles and pained expressions, involuntarily vomiting up seawater - disgusting to look at but a technical marvel within the confines of filmic imagery. One of these monsters, played by Stellan Skarsgård, turns out to be Will's father and it is surprising how affecting the scenes are between the two characters as they converse about their respective situations.
Broadly speaking, the film attempts to re-enact "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly" on water - vast, open swathes of desert become the open seas; horses are traded for boats and six-shooters become cutlasses. The American Civil War is substituted for some kind of battle for naval supremacy between rival factions. Director Gore Verbinski has a lot of fun encouraging the audience to root for Bloom's character to succeed in his mission and save the day so that he may go home and walk off into the sunset with his soul-mate, but that means forcing the audience to go against the character they like the most, which of course is Sparrow, who will meet a grizzly end at the hands of Davy Jones should he fail.
This interplay, like with the aforementioned Leone opus, between the varying sides keeps both the energy and interest levels high. It is something which culminates, of sorts, in a standout sequence involving three different characters sword fighting with each other across the beaches and forestry of a desert island; into the ruins of an old church and then on top of the most durable waterwheel in cinematic history. This is then further ramped up when members of Jones' gang turn up looking for something one of the initial three has on their person.
"Dead Man's Chest" is not great art, but it brings a smile to your face - whether that is through two pirates, who used to be un-dead, but are now alive, conversing about mortality, or via the head-spinning yet strangely steadfast logic of Jack Sparrow as he bargains his way out of another sticky situation, is up to you. For me, the film seemed to iron out all the problems I had with the first one, in terms of pacing and why I was supposed to at all care about those on screen, and run with a similarly magnetic approach, the likes of which I can't say I didn't enjoy.