Title: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Rating: PG13
The Short Version: A fun, but largely vapid movie. If you are looking for a film with action, adventure, interesting visuals, but nothing that will stick with you when you leave the theater, this film will do well for you. Is the equivalent of cotton candy - sweet on the tongue, but really just a bunch of air. Parents should be aware that the visuals of most of the villains are likely to leave children with nightmares.
The Long Version: Pirates of the Carribean 2 picks up where the first movie left off. The two lovebirds are about to web, the pirate has his ship back, and both are about to pursue the life they have always wanted. But then, of course, the villains show up. For Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, the villain is head of the East India Trading company who wants them to find Jack Sparrow, because Jack has an artifact in his possession which can give anyone control over the scourge of the seas: Davy Jones. (Whose locker is much feared by sailors, likely because he forgot the combination in junior high.) For Jack Sparrow, the villain is Davy Jones himself with whom the dread pirate (dread-locked, pirate?) made a deal 13 years before. Much sea-faring ensues.
Davy Jones is an interesting character. In this version, he is a malevolent pirate who long ago - in great pain over a lost love - tore out his own heart, and in the process became a supernatural being of enormous power. He can offer life to the dying on any ship in return for 100 years service on his vessel, during which time the unfortunate crewman becomes more and more mutated into something that looks like an oceanic life form. Jones himself has a squid for a head and a crab claw for an arm. Every member of his crew is similarly in various stages of mutation, and the creature shop who designed and CGI-d them did an amazing job of making each crewman unique with its own theme of sea-ravaged flesh and bone. Jones also controls the Kraken - a legendary sea beast used previously in film for CLASH OF THE TITANS - which is a tentacled creature large enough to consume any ship and its crew in short order. The visuals of the crew, the captain, and the Kraken are likely to give young children nightmares long into their 20s, so parents should take note and consider carefully whether to see this in the theater or wait until DVD when there is a pause button for when it gets too intense.
But the character of Jones and the creature designs are still largely icing on a cake with little taste. The plot is silly, the characters flimsy, and often turning points in the plot seem to happen "just because". Two of the lesser characters from the first film take on an R2-D2, C-3PO role in this one, as commentators on the action, and seem to be aware of the silliness of it all, as they keep trying to bring in scientific or philosophical discussion into the film which ultimately are just setups for a punch-line. This film is much ado about nothing.
That being said, there is one scene which sums up exactly why this film will continue to lead at the box office. At one point, Will Turner (Is there any more pointless actor these days than Orlando Bloom?), Jack Sparrow, and a third character are battling for a magic artifact when they come across a waterwheel. They climb in and the wheel begins to spin. Suddenly, they are having a three-way Errol Flynn-style swordfight on, in, and around a rolling water wheel (sans the water). It is exciting, it is funny, it is original, but ultimately it is pointless. Still, the fun is there, and people will keep shelling out for that fun. Especially at a time when the other family-friendly choices are... uh... Monster House, which seems about as scary and nightmare-inducing.
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