Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest


I saw this a few days ago. I had very high hopes, because I so much enjoyed the first movie in the series with its mixture of clever dialog, interesting story, entertainingly amusing physical action, and Johnny Depp's "I'm not taking this too seriously, and neither should you" sly grin. As an historian, I was pleased to see a few nods to the actual situation of the British possessions. Look at a lot of older pirate movies--there are no blacks in them at all.

As I mentioned three years ago:

There are some pretty awesome special effects, but unlike certain other recent films, they didn't spend so much money on them that they needed to fire the scriptwriters.

Alas, that does not seem to be case with Dead Man's Chest. They clearly spent a lot more money on special effects--as well as making a full-sized pirate vessel (built on a modern frame)--and a lot less on the witty, often intentionally anachronistic dialog of the first movie. I laughed far less.

There are a few fight sequences in Dead Man's Chest that remind you of the great sequence in the blacksmith's shop in the first movie--but not enough to carry a film this long. I never found the first movie dragging; this one felt like it could have lost 20 minutes, and it would have been the better for it. I fear that once the director paid the very sizeable upfront costs to design some of these special effects, he figured, "Hey, it's only another million dollars to put in a few more minutes of this sea creature!"

The first movie, once you accepted its one supernatural premise, was consistent, and logical. I never find myself saying, "How does that work?" Dead Man's Chest has a couple of supernatural premises, but there were clearly a few explanations that never get made--or perhaps the voodoo priestess's accent was just too thick for me to catch it. What, exactly, is packing a certain piece of meat in dirt going to do? I didn't understand, and it bothered me.

The first movie was a bit dark, and I observed at the time that it probably wasn't suitable for most children under 10 because of the macabre aspects of the pirate ship's crew. I think this is even more true for Dead Man's Chest, which has an even more disturbing dead ship's crew. The cannibal sequence is played for laughs, and certain aspects of this might be a bit too disturbing for the very young.

By the way, after the credits, there is a brief gag clip. It isn't bloopers--but it does explain what happens to the dog!