Pirates II

I forgot to write up something on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Dead Man's Chest. All the elements that made the first movie work remain in this movie. This time, time is running out for Jack Sparrow as the ghostly Davey Jones is calling for his soul. In order to get out of this predicament, he has to find Jones's heart, which resides in a chest. Meanwhile, his old friends from the original have their own motivations, particularly Will Turner, who wishes to free his father from Jones's ship the Flying Dutchess.

The story was as fun-spirited, even if it wa slightly more tedious, than the original. The events build organically from The Curse of the Black Pearl 's conclusion; at no point does it feel like the script was developed from committee and the set-ups are always action-packed. I almost imagined the screenwriters jotted ideas taken ideas and plot twists from Ritalin-addled 12-year olds.

There is a certain charm to that, but with it comes pratfalls. Like all movies, it seems, this one is overly long. There is a sequence, for instance, where Sparrow is made chief of a tribe of cannibals and he has to find a way to get away before he is eaten. While funny, the flow of the story came to a stand-still so they could shoe-horn sight gag after sight gag. Clocking in at two and a half hours, it seemed like thy didn't have the kind of time to just dwell on that stuff. There was also a sense that the movie fell in love with its own action sequences, which often got really tedious. While a three-way swordfight was really cool, it just went on and on and on.

Many of the movie's sins can be forgiven for two things: its sense of fun and the fact that it is the second act of a three part story. The movie never loses the spirit and vitality that made the first so exciting, even though it sometimes seemed over-eager to outdo what made the first so great. The other thing that kind of excuses it from some of the excesse that would have sunk other movies is the plot structure issues; it is all middle with no real beginning or end. However, because there is that understanding that there is a third part to the story--underscored by the cliffhanger ending--it is pretty easy to take it as a part and not a whole.