You can sense that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest wants to be like it’s predicessor. It wants to be funny; it wants to cut you with the same biting wit and sardonic humor that made the original so fun and memorable. It wants so badly to be that movie all over again that it takes everything from before and makes it bigger, longer and bolder. The only problem is that, in doing so, Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski lose sight of what made Pirates of the Caribbean instantly classic – the humor. What we end up with is a film that looks like Pirates of the Caribbean, sounds like Pirates of the Caribbean and even plays like it at times, but lacks the heart and soul of the first film.
Johnny Depp is back as Captain Jack Sparrow, but this time around he seems like he’s less on his game. In the first movie, Jack had the drop on everyone. He was so smart, so mischevious and so daring that no one else had an answer for him. Indeed, Jack had all the answers, wrapped up in one-liners and witty phrases that were instant classics, frequently quoted at the watercooler from that day forth.
Jack is the center of this film. But this time around he isn’t sure of what he wants – literally. His magic compass that is supposed to point to his “heart’s desire” spins off in several directions at once and can’t seem to home in on any single course of action. This ends up being a metephor for the entire film, which acts much like Jack’s soul; it just can’t find it’s way because it doesn’t really know what it wants to be.
At times Pirates wants very much to be a special effects extravaganza like Men in Black; other times it wants to be an adventure film in the same vein as Indiana Jones. In both of those regards Dead Man’s Chest succeeds, because the special effects are well done and the action sequences are creative and fun. But there are other times during the film when it is clearly trying very hard to be funny, like its predicessor. Unfortunately, for all of the labored effort that when into writing the jokes for this film, hardly any of them hit home. When the funny scenes come at us they are not commanded by a surgeon, like in the first film, carefully cutting through the fat and tissue and striking directly at the funny bone. Instead, this movie’s jokes are driven by a Mack truck driver, hell-bent on running us over. For instance, one particular scene in the movie concerns a three-way sword fight on a long beach with Keira Knightly as an angry, helpless bystander. There’s not much going on in this scene except for a very labored attempt at humor. You can feel the script writers agonizing over their keyboards during this scene, wondering: “How are we going to make this funny? And how do we top the original?” And that is the basic problem with Dead Man’s Chest: they try and outdo the first film in every aspect, including the humor department, and in attempting that feat they failed to make the film funny at all.
The other major problem with the film, which fans may be willing to forgive by this time next year, is that it is all setup and very little payoff. This is the first of two movies filmed back-to-back, and thus Pirates of the Caribbean 3 will undoubtedly resolve all of the issues and story arcs that were created in this film, bringing everything to a nice, tidy conclusion. That’s fine if you have the DVD’s in your hands and 6 hours to kill, but for a movie that needs to stand on its own two feet it makes it very difficult to fully appreciate it. When the movie ends we’re left holding our popcorn and asking, “Where’s the other half?”
Still, despite the failings, Dead Man’s Chest is a Pirates movie and does most things right. All of the original cast has returned, including Jack Davenport as Commodore James Norrington, which is surprising considering his limited role in the first film. But here the filmmakers have found new ways to incorporate members of the original cast and give them expanded roles. Davenport’s Norrington, for instance, has a much more important role to play this time around, and it’s a welcome change from the typical useless cameos that occupy these sorts of films. As far as new blood goes, Bill Nighy makes his entrance into the franchise as the nefarious Davy Jones, and does a splendid job underneath heaps of makeup and some very cool special effects. Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd shows up and has a great turn as Bootstrap Bill, the father of Will Turner that was hinted at in the first film. One of the best scenes in the movie involves a gambling game between Will (Orlando Bloom), Davy Jones, and Bill, that shows the elder Turner how far his son has really come, and how little he really knows. Finally, Naomie Harris shows up as a voodoo witch named Tia, who, even with black and green teeth, still looks amazingly beautiful. The special effects are top notch and the action is well done; it is a very enjoyable film to watch from a visual point of of view. Only the heart of the film seems to be missing, but the heart is so vital.
Time will tell if this film is the miss it seems to be, or if the third film redeems it by giving us the big payoffs that this film was lacking. Perhaps the real jokes in this movie are setups for the next one. I hope so, because it would be a shame if Captain Jack Sparrow never gets any funnier than this.
