Midway through the second hour of the way-too-long two and a half hour Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, three men, all battling each other for some mystical trinket or other, find themselves atop the wheel of a river mill that has become detached from its moorings and is rolling through the forest. Initially this little bit of whimsy is perfectly appropriate for a jokey action-adventure film. The stout-hearted Will Turner (again played by the ridiculously awful Orlando Bloom) is all grimace and gritted teeth as he balances precariously atop the rolling wheel of destruction battling the sometimes good sometimes evil (former) Commodore Norrington. The outlandish and ridiculous Captain Jack Sparrow (again played by the best thing about the film, otherwise known as Johnny Depp) ambles, in that inimitable way of his, along the bottom of the wheel hoping to swipe the trinket while the others are busy hacking and slashing away at each other. It’s all good ol’ silly fun. But it just keeps going on and on and on. And just when you think it must finally be over, the wheel rolls off a cliff and the whole thing lurches back to life one more time.
This, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with the entire film. It’s fun and enjoyably goofy for while, then it gets bogged down in its torpid plot machinations and arcane mysticism, then when you think it’s pulled itself out of its own ass, the whole thing goes completely off the rails and you’re left staring at your watch and wondering what else is going on in the world. Pirates 2 isn’t a bad film, really, it’s just a mediocre one that doesn’t know when to quit.
The biggest error the filmmakers commit is making Jack Sparrow the hero and central focus of the film. I suppose it makes a certain kind of sense considering what’s transpired between the first and second films (Johnny Depp’s Oscar nomination, the world’s belated realization that Orlando Bloom is an incompetent ass (see: Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabethtown)). But just because Johnny Depp’s the better actor and Jack Sparrow’s the more interesting character doesn’t mean that what the audience wants to see is more more more of Captain Jack. And even if that is what the audience says it wants, that doesn’t mean you should give it to them. Will’s the hero and Jack’s the sidekick, deal with it.
Making this second film into The Captain Jack Story turns the whole affair into an overly complicated and conflicted mess. The filmmakers are forced to twist and turn and contort the plot until it breaks under the enormous strain. They try to give Jack the proper hero’s treatment (and a proper hero’s quest) by making him the center of everyone’s attention. He has a heroic and seemingly impossible task (finding the key that unlocks the chest that contain the still-beating heart of Davy Jones (don’t ask)). He has a mortal enemy (the aforementioned Davy Jones). He has a mighty beast to slay (the Kraken, an octopus-like creature capable of destroying ships). And, as is indicated in the film’s final moments, he will have a journey to Hell and back. In fact, the filmmakers are so in love with Jack Sparrow that they think everyone else, including Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), should be too. So they have her wandering around after him the whole film with stars in her eyes, a development that is just silly to the point of distraction. Obviously the world of Pirates of the Caribbean is not meant to substitute for historical reality but there’s no way the Elizabeth Swanns of any reality would possibly mate with the Jack Sparrows. And it’s insulting for the filmmakers to have even considered it let alone make it the central emotional conflict of the film.
There are times when a film all but demands a sequel (Indiana Jones, Star Wars, etc.). And then there are times when a sequel is demanded of material that doesn’t warrant it. Unfortunately Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest falls into the latter category. And even more unfortunately, the filmmakers, rather than come up with something altogether new and exciting when faced with the challenge of making two sequels, decided to follow the patented route to sequel failure, namely making everything they think worked about the first film twice as big and ignore everything else. This is why Jack Sparrow is the center of the film. And it’s why there are two action setpieces with giant contraptions rolling down hills. And it’s why there’s another ship full of otherworldly miscreants. And it’s also why the film’s no good.
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