Disney's last great blockbuster

Rating: 8/10 (7 July 2020)

Dead Man's Chest arrived at a time when the epic blockbuster era (1999-2008) was beginning to die out, and stands as arguably Disney's last great live-action effort in this genre, unless you're feeling generous towards John Carter. It has a quality that many of today's 'epic' blockbusters are sorely lacking, and has much better special effects than anything produced in the last decade, interestingly enough. And unlike any fantasy/sci fi movie I've seen in what seems forever, it is exciting. The action set-pieces are all extremely well done, and are the most commendable things in the movie. At times it veers into over-the-top bombastic Peter Jacksonian territory (not one, but TWO big kraken attacks), but that's not necessarily a bad thing when tempered with a sense of humor. The cannibal island escape is creative and funny, almost like a Laurel and Hardy comedy. The Kraken is relentlessly built up during the film's first hour and a half so when it finally comes, the attempts of the doomed sailors to fight it seem all the more desperate and dangerous. (Nobody flying around and shooting CGI jazz from their hands like what we get in all these cruddy superhero movies. I cannot overstate how much that helps the suspense and rewatchability.). The mill fight scene is so creatively bonkers; we're given six different motivations for different people all trying to out-cheat each other. The whole sequence is really something, you have to go back to Indiana Jones to get something like this.
The worst thing about this movie is that it all functions as a setup to the mediocre third installment. Also, it spends so much time building its influx of characters into the loopy plot that none of them really get any time to change or evolve. With action scenes this good, though, who's complaining?