Full of thrills and action, but lacks the charm of the original

Rating: 5/10 (10 July 2006)

As a big fan of the original flick I have been waiting sometime for Dead Man's Chest to come out, but was disappointed when I heard of some of the negative reviews. After viewing Dead Man's Chest yesterday I can understand what critics were saying. The first "Pirates" was an exciting fast paced ride and featured strong performances from all of the lead actors. However, this installment of "Pirates" is pretty much all special effects and nonstop action with little attention paid to the actual plot. It seems as if the director had no real storyline planned and just strung together a series of exciting scenes loosely connected by weak dialogue. The cast's talents are wasted: Jack's performance feels half-hearted, Will Turner barely comes across as our hero, and Elizabeth's scenes feel like an afterthought. Their screen magic that made the first movie a success is replaced here for multimillion dollar computer generated technology. Overstaged by special effects, Davy Jones isn't close to the same villain as Rush's Barbossa. Not to mention there were only half the amount of laughs. All in all, this film (which at 150 minutes plus 40 minutes of previews is just way too long) feels like it will only act as a wobbly bridge to connect the first and third film -- and I hope they take more care with storyline in the final installment. While Depp was nominated for an Oscar for his work in the The Curse of the Black Pearl, I see no academy nods in store for this summer popcorn flick.