Gar, Dead Man’s Chest!

This is a little late. Sorry. Fire me if you must.

I was one of those who contributed to the largest opening weekend in movie history, the $136 million that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest looted from the wallets of mankind. Think of the starving children that would have fed. Think of the problems of humanity that could have cured.

Naw!

I’m in a fairly dark period of my life (Who am I? Where am I going? Yadda yadda yadda?) and I got dragged into the daylight to give the film a peek. The end result?

I sort of liked it but I’m mostly disappointed.

Over at Ain't It Cool News, Moriarty said that Dead Man’s Chest is to Curse of the Black Pearl as Empire Strikes Back is to Star Wars: A New Hope. And that’s fairly accurate, except that Empire Strikes Back is the best of the six Star Wars films and one of the truly great geek sci-fi masterpieces of all time, surpassing – in my mind at least – the film that gave it birth. In that sense, Dead Man’s Chest isn’t even in the running.

But if you look at function and not results, it’s an apt comparison. Dead springs right out of the events at the end of Curse. Right from the get-go we learn that Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) were to be wed, only to have their wedding interrupted by some evil representative of the East India Company (damn them a-cursed capitalists!). Seems he has warrants for their arrest, and if convicted (an issue never in doubt) they will be hanged. Their offense? Springing Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from custody, what they did at the end of Curse.

So, voila, the story continues. Our two star-crossed lovers are now facing the consequences of their actions. Commander Norrington (Jack Davenport), who gave Jack one day’s head start, has never caught him and has resigned in disgrace. The only person relatively untouched at the beginning of Dead is Elizabeth’s father (Jonathan Pryce, a personal favorite of mine since his marvelous work in Brazil), but that won’t last.

From this promising start, with a nice, clean tie-in to the first, things go haplessly awry. Seems that Jack Sparrow sold his soul to Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) in order to be made captain of the Black Pearl (you know, his pirate ship). Well, his time is up and Davy is coming to collect.

There’s also Will’s father, Bootstrap (Stellan Skarsgard) and this I thought was a great move because it always struck me as awful what happened to Bootstrap in the first film. I mean, he essentially mutinies against the mutineers, is tied up in chains, and thrown over the side. But that’s after they’ve taken the cursed gold, which means that Bootstrap is cursed along with all of them, sitting on the bottom of the sea, in the dark, the weight of the ocean crushing on him, but unable to die! When I watched Curse and realized this was Bootstrap’s fate, I was horrified. And I was delighted to see it become a plot point in Dead.

So, let’s review. We have a promising beginning, we have a central plot, we have the opportunity for poignancy, even horror. The result? A solid shrug of the shoulders.

The movie just seems to keep jumping all over the place. Director Gore Verbinski (lovely name) can’t hold it all together. The result is a film with a noticeably darker tone (a la Empire, mind you), less humor, more (more, more!) action, way loads of confusion, and decidedly less fun. It also continues a decidedly awful trend: It’s long. Not quite Dear-God-In-Heaven-When-Will-the-Damn-Dirty-Ape-Just-Fall Peter Jackson King Kong long, but pretty close. There isn’t a reason in God’s Heaven for this film to be two and a half hours long. None.

Someone asked me if this was as “kid’s friendly” as the first, which I thought was a strange notion. There was something kid friendly in the first one, what with those skeletons gutting all those sailors? But, I supposed, that was just gratuitous violence and done in cartoon style. Here, it’s more of the same, only the humor isn’t as well done. Oh, and then there’s that human heart. You don’t see the actual extraction, but you do get to see it beating while it sits in a box. Interesting.

Now, that said, I did like the Kraken. I know other critics who complain that it just keeps popping up, but they’re full of it. The Kraken keeps popping up as part of a running battle. Saying he turns up too often is like complaining that in Sink the Bismark the British kept “popping up” too often.

Further, I really enjoyed Nighy’s turn as Davy Jones, tentacles and all. I like that members of his crew become more and more creatures of the sea. I loved the sheer horror of their fate, much more horrific than what happened to the crew of the Pearl under Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). You see, Davy Jones makes then volunteer for their fate. And I really loved Bootstrap; Skarsgard is perfect. The scenes between father and son are, for me, excellent.

There are moments of sacrifice that just feel right and proper. There is also an underlying current betrayal, a constant question of who is on whose side. By the time we meander (and I do mean meander) into the last half hour things are beginning to click. When it comes down to the cliffhanger – yes, it is a cliffhanger and you won’t see the end until next summer – I liked the turn of the last card. The final moment before the credits just made me grin from ear to ear.

And damnit, I meant to stay through the credits because there’s supposed to be a bit there that I’m sure will pop up in the next film. There was just such a bit at the end of Curse and it does pop up in this film. (Remember the monkey's fate?)

So, cursed ye pirates, I be going back for more. Gaarrr!