{"id":10054,"date":"2007-01-18T14:48:25","date_gmt":"2007-01-18T19:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=10054"},"modified":"2007-01-18T14:48:25","modified_gmt":"2007-01-18T19:48:25","slug":"pirates-of-the-caribbean-dead-mans-chest-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/18\/pirates-of-the-caribbean-dead-mans-chest-2006\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2006_dead_mans_chest\"<\/a>To pretend \u201cThe Curse of the Black Pearl\u201d possessed an elaborate, epic story rich in characterization and subtle dialogue, would be to set up all sorts of pretensions. \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d is in the same vein as the former, only slightly more intent on showing its blatant grab for big bucks. Disney ran out of ideas, turned to make their rides into movies and got lucky. Big whoop. \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d is fun, though, and I can\u2019t sweat them for that. Verbinski\u2019s direction is on par as usual, and \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d is a gorgeous epic, with some of the better action scenes that trump the original\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Though, the original can\u2019t be topped in sheer dread, \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d has a whimsy serial atmosphere that really clicked, with pretty fantastic cinematography. That is also helped by the amazing special effects from the folks of ILM who literally top themselves this time around providing some of the most unique villains of the squid faced Davy Jones, and his crew of seamen. One of the more interesting achievements is that audiences will have a hard time discerning make up effects from computer effects, but nonetheless, it\u2019s seamless. Bill Nighy takes a memorable turn as the vicious Davy Jones, who seeks the chest that holds his heart, but can\u2019t outrun Jack Sparrow who seeks it as a form of ransom, and to keep Will Turner under his control, after agreeing to trade his mysterious compass for Elizabeth\u2019s freedom after they\u2019re arrested shortly before their wedding for help Jack escape.<\/p>\n

\u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d is filled with very good performances from Knightley, and Bloom and sports unique turns from some great actors including Naomie Harris as a Jamaican witch, and Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd as the undead pirate \u201cBootstrap Bill,\u201d who helps Turner attempt to outwit Jones. \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d is entertaining because Depp and crew seem to have a bang up time as these pirates fighting for Jones\u2019 heart, and the eventual confrontation with the Kraken under the sea. I still don\u2019t understand the hype behind \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest.\u201d Is it bad? No, but is it the masterpiece I\u2019ve heard so much about? The masterpiece that people insist is a financial success because of its quality? No. In fact, I had this particular feeling that I was being duped the entire time with it. Ultimately, \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d is much too long, and in that trapping, the film ends up feeling like two films, as a result.<\/p>\n

One features Turner\u2019s attempts break free, catch up with Jack Sparrow, and convince him to help him break Elizabeth free. The second movie features Turner coming across Davy Jones, spending time on his boat, and trying to catch up with Jack Sparrow on the island where Jones\u2019 heart is. It feels as if suddenly, there was one writing team focusing on this rollicking light adventure, and suddenly another writing team was hired to create this almost disconnected second story was dreary, and utterly disjointed. While the second half features a slightly more cohesive plot, the first half watches like a pointless stunt show, as Disney puts ILM to work. Sword fighting on a huge rolling wheel, swinging from a cage made of bones, Sparrow attempting to keep from being eaten while strapped to a huge pole, and so on. The writers take so long arriving to the actual plot, that the first half really is nothing more than filler, and excuses to feature stunts and special effects, and after the first blatant stunt, it just becomes redundant and dull.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s mysteriously very little plot, and little to no elements that will involve the audience, thus it lags incredibly by the time the second half rolls around and finally explores the point of the movie. Davy Jones. And then to make it worse, Davy Jones isn\u2019t played to his full potential, as he performs very little action sequences, leaving it up to the wholly boring giant monster the Kraken that demolishes every single enemy on the boat, and it was excessive. But that\u2019s likely because the writers are keeping the good stuff for the third part of the trilogy. Which then becomes confusing.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a wholly unresolved climax in \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d that feels like a cheap gimmick to keep people coming into theaters. \u201cWant to find out what happened? Watch part three!\u201d Full Moon Pictures still receives flack for creating the \u201cSubspecies\u201d franchise that had each movie end on a cliffhanger, yet \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d gets away with this? Not on my watch, buster. Yeah, I said buster. The entire film feels like a preamble to something better, and it\u2019s a cheap ploy, because what\u2019s the point of calling it a trilogy, and asking audiences to invest in the story of \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest,\u201d if it\u2019s basically just filler leading up to something much bigger and better? \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d is comfortably in the middle ground. It\u2019s not as bad as I\u2019ve heard it described by many, yet, it\u2019s far from any resemblance to the masterpiece audiences have described it as. Quite a conundrum, no? Ironically I was conflicted as well. \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d feels like two movies: one good, one pretty pointless, neither of which is worth the hype.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To pretend \u201cThe Curse of the Black Pearl\u201d possessed an elaborate, epic story rich in characterization and subtle dialogue, would be to set up all sorts of pretensions. \u201cDead Man\u2019s Chest\u201d is in the same vein as the former, only slightly more intent on showing its blatant grab for big bucks. Disney ran out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,64,71,219,290,349,412,561,752,778,874,922,1087],"class_list":["post-10054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-adaptation","tag-adventure","tag-comedy","tag-disney","tag-fantasy","tag-giant-monsters","tag-johnny-depp","tag-p","tag-pirates","tag-romance","tag-sequel","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}