Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Dead Man's Chest B-

As a 5-year old kid, my favorite movie was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and the scene when the giant squid attacks the submarine has long been one of my favorite cinematic sequences. Naturally, I was pretty excited about seeing another massive squid attack a crew of ill-fated seamen, and I was not disappointed. The squid scenes were nothing short of riveting, bringing fresh realism and motion to the iconic images of a mythological beast terrorizing sailors. It was freaking cool, the squid was worth 8 bucks to me. If big squids are worth that much to you too, then you'll love this movie. If you're looking for dull thespian pursuits like "plot" or "acting" then this ain't the ride for you, savvy?

Dead Man's Chest is the Empire Strikes Back of the Pirates saga (a third has already been filmed). For some reason, the film is a good deal darker. The inherent fun of a Pirate movie is not reveled in as much as in the last one. This is more of a dark fantasy epic with heroes and villains and monsters and magic. Johnny Depp is still good as Jack Sparrow, but for some reason, he doesn't seem to want to work it as much. His character is a lot more haunted this time around, and he's definitely a lot more despicable than noble. In the last movie he kind of had this balance between looking out for himself and loyalty to the heroes. In this movie he's all in it for himself which could've been funny, but instead it makes Jack seem selfish and unlikable. His redemption is a plot point at the end, but it seems a bit anticlimactic somehow.

Keira Knightly is same old same old, as trite tough-girl Elizabeth Swann. Boring! Orlando Bloom plays the same dull boy scout hero. Boring! Bill Nighy as a computer generated evil octopus man...freaking awesome! Nighy's Davey Jones is one of the coolest special effects projects ever undertaken. Having already stated my love for tentacled sea creatures, a villian with tentacles for a beard is too cool. Nighy's voice is perfect and you can just see his face under the CG tentacles. Nighy's Jones ends up being just as much fun as Geoffrey Rush's Captain Barbosa in the first film. His crew of mutated sea animal sailors are also fun to watch. The only disappointment with these great characters is an anticlimactic entrance. I loved the revelation sequence in the first movie when you find out that the pirates are actually cursed skeleton pirates. There was a good buildup of tension and a great "holy @#*&!" moment as Rush steps into the moonlight and becomes a skeleton. There is none of that in this movie. The mollusk encrusted crew just kind of appear and Bloom fights them off with his typical annoying warrior-kid attitude without a shred of disbelief or surprise that he just got jumped by twenty grotesque supernatural beings with shark heads and lobster pinchers and stuff. Well, whatever, they look cool.

My biggest complaint with Pirates 2 is that it's not really a movie with a beginning and an end. "It's all middle" has been the biggest indictment. While there's no rule against it, this is not a stylistic move befitting of the Erol Flynn-esque throwback that the first Pirates movie was. The franchise has gone the way of Star Wars and The Matrix, lots of characters, lots of special effects, lots of plotlines = no real conclusion, just an appetizer for the next movie. Verbinski has indicated that things will wrap up for good in the next movie, but wouldn't it be smarter to make these movies episodic and not epic? That way you could have more of them, keep the Erol Flynn matinee serial thing going and not be pressed to "wrap up" everything.

All in all, Pirates 2 is a little bizarre. To go into that statement might give away some major plot twists, but if you've seen it, you know what I mean. The plot is winding and sketchy, and kind of leaves you going "so what are they doing?" There is absolutely no conclusion, by the way. It's a bit of a sour ending that leaves our heroes in bad (mostly self-inflicted ) states. Kinda' weird, and the closing scene reveals a shocking revelation that caps all the weirdness. In the end, Pirates 2 is a bloody thrill ride, and that's about it. Even at 2 hrs. 45 min, it never loses steam, just be ready for a not-so-satisfying plot, confusions of loyalty and a weird ending.