Dead Man's Sequel
Written: Nov 12 '06 (Updated Nov 13 '06)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Bang For The Buck |
 |
|
|
Pros: Depp is still great, makes you anticipate #3,Orlando Bloom has a cute...nose
Cons: not much of a story of it own, TO MUCH DEPP scene hogging
The Bottom Line: If you didn't like the first, there's no point in seeing this. If you did then you already know you have to see this so you'll understand the 3rd
|
|
|
| Paceyluvr1's Full Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest |
***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS WHAT I CONSIDER MINOR SPOILERS! I DO NOT TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENS BUT I DO MENTION THINGS ABOUT THE PLOT THAT YOU WOULD NOT HAVE SEEN IN A PREVIEW***
When someone asks me what I thought of this movie, I tell them it was a REALLY LONG begining to the 3rd movie.
Have you ever watched a movie that came out right before they made a TV series on it and you felt like the movie was meaningless aside from trying to get you to watch the show. (Example: Stitch-the sequel to Lilo and Stitch)
OK, so, my sister is a DIE HARD Johnny Depp fan. Her, my husband, and I saw the original in the theater and loved it! So when I heard there was a sequel, I got online and booked her and I tickets for the midnight advanced screening.
There were SO MANY adult patrons dresses like pirates that it was hard to believe we were watching a sequel to a Disney movie that was written based on a ride of all things. But it was a very cool moving going experiance.
At the begining of this movie Elizabeth (Knightly) and Will(Bloom) are trying to get married but get arrested in the middle of it for assisting a pirate. Of course that would be assisting Jack Sparrow (Depp) in the original movie.
Will then makes a deal with the captain to let Elizabeth go, and pardon them both, if he will go and retrieve a compass from Captain Jack.
Of course Elizabeth later escapes to go find Will and help the 2 of them get pardoned (B/c if she hadn't escaped she wouldn't have had much of a role in this movie)
Davy Jones just so happens to be looking for Mr. Sparrow as well b/c of a deal they had made years ago. Davy Jones, believe it or not, is NOT the short guy from the Monkees. ;) He is the dreaded Davy Jones who died years ago after he had his heart broken and then ripped it out, still beating of course, and put it into a chest (the Dead Man's Chest) SO now he lives (undead anyway) forever ruling the underworld of the sea! And apparantly he makes deals with pirates in exchange for their souls.
The only thing that can lead them to the chest is Jack's compass (that never points North)
We eventually figure out that this is why the main captain offerred Will and Elizabeth a pardon for finding the compass. Because who ever finds the chest and holds Davy Jones's heart controls Davy Jones and therefore controls the sea.
SO the storyline itself has some promise and doesn't completely suck.
Of course Captain Jack wants to find the Chest with the heart now too b/c Davy Jones has called his Krakon (sea monster) to go after Jack and he wants him to call it off.
So with everyone looking for the same chest, and Davy Jones gaurding the chest while also looking for Jack, swashbuckeling and betrayals insue.
For me this movie wasn't very believeable. Now, I know you're thinking. "Well, Der, neither was the first one. Don't you remember the dead fighting pirates?" But my expectations of belief are based on the first one. I mean it wasn't believeable as far as the personalities and continuing the story from the 1st movie.
While Will and Elizabeth are defending Jack's name to the death at the beginging. Jack actually betrays them and tries to trade Will's soul to Davy Jones for his own and even does alot of flirting and sexual joking with Elizabeth. He is made out to look like more of a 2-faced jerk than I think most viewers were wanting him to be (b/c he really is the character we all came to see anyway..well most of us)
In the first movie Depp's character won everyone over b/c he plays him so well. As he does in this one. But it seems like the writers were making it really obvious that they KNEW people liked Depp and that that would make up for what the other characters lack. They seemed to leave the other characters emotions and personalities so empty and hard to get into. I LOVE Jack Sparrow, but he can only do that gay little run so many times in one movie before it's overdone. Watching him flail his arms and make silly jokes is great until the movie becomes almost slap stick. It got to the point where I caught myself thinking. "wow, if these were real pirates they would really suck" And I know that's a silly thing to say but when I watch a movie I want to be so sucked into it that it feels a little real to me. ANd I was wondering how such silly bumbeling morons were supposed to defeat Davy Jones. Scary, but I wouldn't have been suprised if The Wiggles and Captain Feathersword had arrived to save the day.
There is also a scene with some island natives that seemed very dumb and out of place in this movie. Like they were looking for an action scene to connect 2 other scenes and after throwing darts at some quotes on a wall THIS scene is what they came up with.
Alot of the jokes are very very funny. They're just to obvious. Kind of like stand up comedy, if you know what I mean. Depp turns over an empty bottle of whiskey and says "Where does all the whiskey go" and then he stands up and stumbles and says "Oh...that's where" Or maybe it was Rum, but you get the idea.
Another thing I noticed is that Elizabeth holds her own a little to much for me in this movie. Not ONCE, that I can remember, did WIll or anyone else defend her or rescue her. She did all of her fight scenes on her own. That wouldn't have bothered me to the point of noticing it, if I hadn't remembered how noble Will was portayed to be in the 1st movie. This movie went a little TO womens lib for me.
One BIG BIG thing that I keep telling myself about this movie (that I touched on at the begining of this review) is that I feel like it isn't really even a seperate movie in it's own right. Honestly, if I didn't know it were a "middle" movie then it would have sucked. The ONLY reason it was even OK, is b/c we know that the story isn't over. It had a mediocre begining and an AWFUL ending. But that's in part b/c it's begining and it's ending were not it's own. They were simply connectors between the first movie and the 3rd movie. You could have taken this movie and put it at the end of the first movie, and aside from being a REALLY long first movie ;) It would fit. Same goes double for the sequel b/c I honestly thought this was more of a begining than the first movie.
Now that I mention it. Had the first movie not been made then the 2nd and 3rd could still have been made b/c this had very little referance to the first movie. Other than them going to jail for helping Jack and for Will's father being on Davy Jones's ship. Which I really like that idea. It was a tad bit (ok a whole lot) obvious, but I still liked it in this movie.
All I can do is hope that the 3rd one makes up for this one. If the 3rd one is good, then this one was worth making all of us want to see the 3rd one. If the 3rd one SUCKS, then that means they got an AWFUL lot of money out of 2 sequels based on an AWESOME first movie (a' la Matrix)
Also, the rating is suitable b/c I would no let my kids watch this movie. They are 2, 4, and 6 (7 in December) and I know that Davy Jones and his minions would scare them. ALong with him killing several people.
I hate to leave you with what seems like an open wide review that didn't really tell you much. But to be honest...that's pretty much what this movie did to me...
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Die-hard Fans Only
Viewing Method: Studio Screening/Premiere
Film Completeness: A few glitches, but mostly complete.
Worst Part of this Film: Ending
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Paceyluvr1
|
|
Member: Jennifer Creech
Location: Kentucky
Reviews written: 54
Trusted by: 13 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.