The Dark Side of the Caribbean

Rating: 9/10 (13 August 2006)

There appear to be numerous people who expected more of the same of what was in _Curse of the Black Pearl_ and complain that either they didn't get it, or else that what they got wasn't the part of what they expected. Which makes one wonder what they expected or had hoped for to begin with; and why they would be deluded enough to think that it was even possible to provide said elements. 'The same only different' is almost impossible to deliver. Every time it's been tried, it failed to excite, excepting neophobes. _Dead Man's Chest_ provides a nice combination of some of the expected, with a fairly good and sensible continuation of the story. Reminds me of Star Wars, episodes 4-6. Only this one is better. There you go: heresy! Seriously though: think of where PotC:CotBP ended. Sparrow gets away, but is likely to be pursued by Norrington across the seas. Jack has unfinished business with dark powers. Will and Elizabeth plan to marry. Pirates are about to be executed en masse, what with there being no anti-capital-punishment demonstrators handy. The East India Trading Company, an organization with a tainted history, and one of the precursors of modern multinationals, invades the Caribbean, piggy-backing its activities on the military colonial presence. The nasty monkey from PotC:CotBP steals a piece of gold and becomes immortal; but you had to watch through the end-credits to see that bit. Someone from the East India Company watches a DVD of PotC:CotBP, and so finds out about the Aztec treasure and that it is to be avoided at all cost.
What follows in this sequel is, as far as one can expect this in a silly fantasy flick, a view at the possible consequences. Norrington fails to find Jack and becomes a drunk eager to get back into the good graces of the powers-that-be; revealing dark streaks to his nature. Dark elements also surface in Elizabeth, who has always been a bit attracted to Jack and he to her, and who uses this for an act that she eventually probably regrets; something so ultimately pragmatic and survival oriented that I couldn't believe it at first. Will tries to be noble, but finds it extremely difficult, even though he's far more naive than his fiancÃ©e. Confronted with his father, he is pushed to places he might not otherwise have gone.
The darknesses found in the characters reveals depth, as darkness always does, and makes them very much more interesting and three-dimensional. As a result the movie bears about the same relationship to the original that The Empire Strikes Back had to the original Star Wars. In many ways it works better, because one has the feeling that the writers aren't going for some grand deep-and-meaningful cosmic salvage plan, and are also avoiding thoroughly annoying elements like those pesky and tedious Ewoks. There is very little 'cute' factor in _Dead Man's Chest_; some pretty horrific stuff, implied and off-camera, but potentially disturbing for children; nice gross creatures; lots of "har har"; evil multinationals represented by psychopaths; great visuals and lots of noise; more twists and turns that you can shake a stick at, which a lot of people found confusing, but who cares about them; lots of shtick; and a Johnny Depp, who treads a fine line between being funny and becoming annoying, so much so that I almost hope we won't see much of him in the final installment, but focus on the interesting people in the mix: those less concerned with parodying themselves.
Despite Depp it was thoroughly enjoyable, and I have no problems with the lack of denouement. We lived through LotR, did we not? Except, of course, that there we knew the outcome...
Till Noever, owlglass.com