Disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (15 July 2006)

The effects are good.
Johnny Depp remains amusing.
Keira Knightley is very beautiful up there on the big screen. I don't think she's well-cast in these big budget action spectaculars, though: she has a modest, quiet kind of talent that is just better served by costume dramas and romantic comedies and the like. Too much of the time she just feels drowned out by the action. And also, frankly, no offense to the girl power contingent, but who wants to see her in guy's clothes fighting? I fully agree with Sparrow: she should be in a dress or nothing at all.
Orlando Bloom is a stick. I keep forgetting he's even in the thing.
The movie more generally suffers from being fundamentally misconceived. Did anyone really care about Bloom's father issues? Or Ms. Knightley, torn between the two men in her life and then burdened with a third potential love interest? No, of course not. We all wanted to see the same damn movie as the first one, but this time with Depp as the star. Well, he's not exactly in a supporting role here -- this is more of an ensemble piece -- but he has to share a little too much screen time with everyone else, because this is a straight up continuation of the story. Like we care. This is especially a problem in the beginning: the set up is long and craftsmanlike, but it's all in the service of a bad idea, and it just weighs things down.
I also thought the movie just didn't know how to end, until finally it just stops -- while we wait for the sequel, in a pretty ham-handed cliffhanger.
I'll probably see the third, but I'm not optimistic.