This is lots of fun

Rating: 4/10 (20 July 2006)

One of the best modern-blockbusters in a long time was Gore Verbinski's sprawling Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Johnny Depp became more than the infamous, poetic cult-hero as he made the role as Jack Sparrow nothing but brilliantly good. The movie had guts and entertainment more than any other movie, the fabulous setting was perfect for great actors as Depp, Bloom, Rush and Knightley to let their wildest imaginations run free. With it's speed-fueled follow-up finally arriving the cinemas, Dead Man's Chest is packed with more action than the first and follows the exact same formula. And this is totally okay, because seriously we couldn't get enough of the first pirates so we simply wanted more of this adventure; and here it is.
Dead Man's Chest has exchanged the comic and un-serious undertones of the first with more serious aspects and moods, and though this proves to be a small misstep it doesn't affect the movie all that much. Dead Man's Chest has also got a longer runtime and with this Verbinski sees the opportunity to for-fill even more of our fantasies of pirate-action; examples of this finds Sparrow being caught in a tricky situation with cannibals and bad-guy Davy Jones gladly challenging the Black Pearl one more time. Johnny Depp is superbly back in the suit of Jack Sparrow and Verbinski seems to have a good understanding of not misusing his key-player; and it's fantastic seeing that everybody's back for the second coming, though it's also a fact that some of the returning characters are very useless and dull, especially the return of Norrington. Dead Man's Chest should have gone to a totally new water with it's story and based the whole movie around a totally new event instead of dragging old-characters and subplots into the story. This makes the whole story weaker than it actually is, because the new tale of Davy Jones is almost just as thrilling as Captain Barbossa's.
Dead Man's Chest is a striking summer-movie and it's packed with action and excitement, so it really is a worthy sequel to the ingenious original.