Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Between four and five stars. Far funnier and more playful than number one. I can't remember a time in a long time when I roared with laughter along with the whole cinema so hard that I had to wipe tears from my eyes, like when the main characters escape from the cannibals. The film has a slower pace in the beginning and has some passages that had me falling asleep (zero hours of sleep a night will have its share of that), but when the filmmakers put their minds to it, it's worth it. Some scenes are so rewarding that it goes to absurd lengths. Case in point, as the three main characters all fence against each other over the chest mentioned in the title, THEN Keira Knightley throws rocks at them, THEN behind her back two pirates are just now stealthily carrying the chest to the ship, THEN all the characters are still fighting over the key to the chest, and THEN some fishermen come out of the sea with the same goal. I'm not counting the continuation of the scene, where ON TOP OF THAT they add a mill wheel. For my part, I like that kind of bombastic playfulness, combined with Johnny Depp tickling my diaphragm again (maybe even more than in the first one), I'd really feel sorry about that four. (03/08/2006)

Needless bombast and excessive length versus great sea monsters and a slimy (literally and to the letter!) villain played by Bill Nighy and his makeup/digital magicians. Johnny Depp is equally good, but he has nothing left to surprise us with. Throw out part of that storyline and cut the runtime down to 120 minutes, and this would be worthy of four stars. (07/08/2006)

I understand the huge earnings, because it is precisely the kind of clearly outlined and technically perfectly arranged eye-candy entertainment tailor-made to a mainstream audience that wouldn’t go to the cinema without a large Coke and several tons of crunchy popcorn. However, with a cold feeling in my soul, I can say that the first installment is better, practically in every possible aspect. The sequel has one crucial problem: clutter; everything here is excessive. An unnecessarily overwrought story (especially the last approximately 45 minutes), too many jokes – and some situations are not explicitly comical – too many alternating locations, and too many visual effects, which are, of course, fantastic by themselves, but that is more or less an unwritten obligation in projects of this caliber. The characters are depicted the same way as in the first installment. Johnny Depp is excellent again, and this time Orlando Bloom is also good. The Kraken is a cool monster, and the make-up effects of the main villain are so captivating that it is hard to believe. There are several truly unforgettable scenes (the natives, Jack Sparrow pole jumping, the fight on the giant wheel, etc.), but unfortunately, the whole thing feels somewhat inconsistent, cynical, and above all, quite boring. Once is enough. (17/07/2006)

A ride in which you alternately switch from a Trabant to a racing car. However, this unbalanced mix of lengthy workarounds, overstuffed plot and diabolical action is still worth seeing, if only because of the amazing Billy "Davy Jones" Nighy, who proves that even with just the eyes and suggestive voice modulation you can perform miracles. (14/08/2006)

Under normal circumstances I’d give it 4 stars, but there is a kind of magic line running through the whole movie that made me add one bonus star (and no, it's not because of Depp). Dead Man's Chest is much darker than The Black Pearl, and the story is much more elaborate, which is a big plus. Chest is also funny to hilarious, unfortunately not always in a good way. Some jokes are unnecessarily exaggerated and certainly don't help the story, while others are perfect and fitting (I laughed until my stomach hurt, literally :). It's as if Verbinski is trying to stuff two different kinds of humor into one movie (perhaps he really tried, but without success). The characters of Elizabeth and Will have undergone an amazing change. They're no longer just Captain Jack's appendages, but individual and distinct beings. Keira in particular is wonderful at the end (she reminded me of Domino). The special effects are even better than last time, and Davy Jones' crew easily outdoes the skeletons from the first movie. And Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow was flawless, of course, but it’s a shame he lost the element of surprise... The magical storyline vanished into thin air. 4 (07/09/2006)