Disappointment!!

Rating: 6/10 (19 July 2006)

This movie will always be memorable to me ... for all the wrong reasons! It is only the second movie I have ever walked out on, the first being "Total Recall" with Gov. Arnold, and I only walked out of that one because my wife found it too violent and wanted to leave. It also ranks as the biggest disappointment ever! The only movie that even came close to letting me down this much was "Problem Child 2" which took a very cute first movie and turned it into one big poop joke. I didn't have high expectations for Problem Child 2, however, while for Pirates 2 I was eagerly anticipating a great night at the theatre.
This movie starts out badly and just gets progressively worse. It was apparent early on that the movie was in trouble. We had a cliché arrest scene, a less the threatening villain, some bogus deal to get a "Compass of Your Heart's Desires" (*cough* just made that name up*cough*)for the villain so he won't kill our two lovebirds .. and on and on and on. Before we are done, we find out Davy Jones is really Mr.Squidhead, who has Mr.Sharkhead and Mr.Coralhead as his crew, that cannibals are intent on eating Jack because they believe he is god and if they eat him they will be releasing his spirit (or some tripe like that ... it didn't make any sense and I don't really thing the producers of this piece of offal really cared), cliché drunken pirates who are always running out of rum (god that joke was overdone!), and finally, in the scene that had my wife and I deciding we'd probably seen enough, Mr. Squidhead playing the organ with his facial tentacles. We walked out, before we burst out laughing at all the wrong places.
Even ... and I say this with great fear and trembling as I have never criticized the man's work before .. even Johnny Depp looked like he was just going through the motions, throwing out the Captain Jack mannerisms in overabundance, and hoping it would suffice as acting. The original Captain Jack was brilliant and unique ... a parody of all the big screen pirates who came before. Well in the sequel, Johnny Depp plays a Captain Black who is a parody of a parody. It was just sad.
After polling my kids who had seen this movie before me, I was truly expecting a comic adventure masterpiece, as one said that it was pretty good and the other said it was great. I thought I raised them better then that!! *hands his head in shame* I am still shocked that the producers of this film would turn a successful first movie into some pirate/star wars/mickey mouse conglomeration.
Those who want to defend this movie can, I suppose, cite its great "sillyness" factor. My son's girlfriend said "Well its a Disney kids movie, what did you expect?" I guess I was expecting a well made movie, like the original.
However, "Pirates vs the Squid Man" was just plain terrible!