A major disappointment...

Rating: 2/10 (19 July 2006)

Within 15 minutes of its beginning, it became obvious to me that this movie is nothing more than a cheap ploy to make an easy buck by riding on the success of the first movie. They managed to bring back all of the actors from the original movie, using the same costumes, ships, jokes and just about everything else. They just left one thing out, a decent plot. What a bore! First of all it was too complicated and overloaded with many weird twists and turns, using excessive special effects, especially that huge octopus that kept coming back to destroy ships and crush people. Second, it was far too long (it could've been edited in half), as if the director was trying give us value through quantity, even if it annoyed the hell out of us. Third, it was not well acted at all. I'm not sure which was worse, the writing, acting or the directing.
One of the biggest problems with this movie is its plot. It didn't flow smoothly at all and included far too many unrelated scenes that were designed to impress us with some boring special effects. There was no fluidity to the story and the action scenes were too many, too violent, too gross and too superficial. There was no character development at all. Everyone in the movie seems to be doing whatever they wanted, almost like improvising, with very little supervision/directing. They were repeating their performance from the first movie and doing bits and pieces here and there and everywhere with not much sense or purpose. Even Johnny Depp's character's was somewhat dull and stale with no clear definition to it. Kiera Knightley's acting was over-dramatized and often strange that didn't fit her character at all. Her performance was pathetic with many foolish displays and no consistency at all. One minute she was the sweet helpless woman in love with a man, another minute she's disguised as a man on a ship doing weird things for no particular reason, another minute she's a highly competent fighter, then she is a sexy deceptive woman seducing and romancing Depp, then she sacrifices him, then minutes later she wants to bring him back because she felt guilty and on and on .
The movie ended without any resolution at all, leaving us very frustrated. Just like they do in cheap TV soap operas, they wanted to leave us curious enough about the conclusion in order to make sure that we come back for the third sequel. What a cheap trick to make a buck. Needless to say I wouldn't waste my good money, or time, to see any more sequels. There was nothing original about this movie. I always liked Depp, but he appears to have sold out. He and the rest of the cast should be ashamed of themselves for being part of such a worthless scam.