Pilates of the Caribbean - review

I saw ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ yesterday and I’ve decided to give it a review here and warning about it. The first thing I must say is that if you really hate movies where the whole thing is a set up that mostly gives half answers and half reveals only to finish up with a HUGE ‘to be continued’ feeling at the end, then perhaps this isn’t the movie for you. Or at least wait until they have made the next sequel and then watch this one on dvd before seeing it. The reason I say this is that unlike the first one which left you feeling satisfied and happy that you have seen a whole film, for me this movie was purely the setup for the next sequel. Perhaps I have been ignorant by purposely avoiding reviews about this film, but I was really expecting a beginning, a middle and an end. But now (as the film makers obviously intended) I will have to wait until the next one in this series comes out to find out what happens with all the loose ends. And loose ends there are! Eg. What has become of Jack Sparrow? What of Will Turners relationship with Elizabeth Swann? What happened to the poor dog that got left with the Cannibals? What are the East India Trading company’s plans? Can the new captain be trusted? Etc, etc. Too much unfinished business in a movie if you ask me. So that’s my main gripe out of the way.

Now for a quick explanation of the main plot. The film starts with Will and Elizabeth being arrested by a new sinister character who is some Lord that is high up in the East India Trading company. Basically he represents the capitalist scum bag type that will stop at nothing to increase their profits to buy nicer wigs, brandy and other such upper class English paraphernalia of that era. Throughout the movie not much is revealed about their grand plans, but it’s obvious they’re up to no good.

As for Jack Sparrow, well apparently to get his ship (The Black Pearl) in the first place, he made a deal with Davy Jones that after 13 years he would serve aboard his ship (The Flying Dutchman) as one of the damned crew. Or….he could find another person to take his place. Of course Davy Jones really wants Jack, so when Sparrow tricks Turner into taking his place, Jones says that it’s not good enough etc, etc and then spends the rest of the movie chasing him.

The story with Davy Jones is that he was a pirate who fell in love with a woman (shock-horror!) and then had some problems which aren’t really explained, and so he decided to cut his own heart out so he couldn’t feel anymore. Apparently doing so didn’t kill him but instead gave him eternal life/death and as a bonus he is able to summon the Kraken (gigantic, mythological sea creature) to wreak havoc on his enemies. Another of his powers is that he can make a deal with sailors to serve aboard his ship for a hundred years (or more if they want!) thus putting off the judgment of the afterlife for 100 or more years of slavery. Over time these damned sailors become mutated into weird hybrids between humans and sea creatures mostly just to cause a lot of entertainment for computer animators. As for Davy Jones heart, well he placed in a box and wears the key to the box around his neck. The key to the box is what Jack Sparrow wants to get and preferably without putting himself in danger if possible. With Jones heart I believe he plans to get out of his debt and possibly do other stuff, but again that’s something that isn’t really explained.

Confused yet? Well obviously each character has their own motivation for doing what they do and in this film there are a lot of characters. It is possible that I have given the impression that I didn’t really like this film, but that isn’t true. I did enjoy it even though it didn’t have as many comedic moments as the first one and is considerably darker with more deaths either shown or that take place between scenes. Johnny Depp is great as Jack Sparrow as he was in the first film and I liked a lot of the other characters even though there are too many to keep a good track of. The main thing I didn’t like about it was that I think a number of scenes were dragged out too much for the sake of making the third film. The story and some of the script was pretty messy, but in general I did like where it was going. It’s just a big adventure film and if that appeals to you, you should still get something out of it. I gave it 3.5 out of 5. It might have otherwise been 3, but Keira Knightley was hot.