First the good news - it's not as bad as some reviewers have made out! Now the bad - it's not as good as the first one.
The basic plot is that Captain Jack Sparrow owes a debt of 100 years of service on Davy Jones' ship, The Flying Dutchman. Naturally, he's trying to weasel out of it and begins searching for the Dead Man's Chest which holds Davy Jones' heart - destroy the heart, kill Davy Jones, no more debt. But Jack's not the only one looking for it. Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann have been coerced under the threat of death into finding the Chest for the East India Company - control the heart, control the seas, East India Company makes a crapload of cash. And so it's a competition of who can get what first - Davy trying to get Captain Jack/everyone else trying to get the heart/chest.
I'm not going to bother with my usual analysis of the plot or the acting because lets face it, this isn't really a movie where you can question if the plot has giant holes in it or whether the acting is top-notch. Having said that, POTC:DMC still reminds me of the Monkey Island games (Best. Games. Ever.) and of the actors, Johnny Depp is still amusing as Captain Jack, Orlando Bloom is still wooden as Will, Keira Knightley is still kinda annoying as Elizabeth, Bill Nighy is damn near unrecognisable underneath all those tentacles as Davy Jones, but the standout is Naomie Harris (who?!) as the Voodoo Lady. She rocks!
The feeling I had while watching this was somewhat akin to my feelings toward King Kong and Harry Potter 4. Like King Kong, POTC:DMC can be broken up into individual set-pieces to be marked off on a list - Jack's crazy escape - check! The big pirate brawl - check! The cannon fight - check! And of course, the most ridiculous fight ever in a giant water-wheel - check! Sure, the pieces were entertaining but at the same time, I kept thinking that the movie really needed to be edited down - it really did not need to clock in at 150 minutes. The running time contributed a great deal to the feeling I had while walking out. Like Harry Potter, I felt entertained but that there was a certain something lacking which stopped me from raving about it the way I did with the first. Oddly enough, I don't think it was the cliffhanger ending of the movie.
Ah, the ending. This has been a bone of contention with a few people I've spoken to, most notably John I.T. Support who declared "I didn't pay $15 to watch half a movie! If I knew it was gonna end like that, I would have only paid $7.50!" On one hand, I suppose he's right - the *conclusion* of the movie as an end to the installment is unsatisfying because you can't view POTC:DMC in its own right. It exists solely to set up the third and, I assume, final part. But on the other hand, I soooooooooo didn't see the twist coming that I really want to see how the ending pans out! I just hope that it is more like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and less like The Godfather III or Matrix Revolutions.
Overall, I'd say POTC:DMC is an enjoyable movie, but there are enough flaws in it that I can't give it the stellar review I want to give it.
6-7/10
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