The Pirates Are Sailing but They Aren't Having Fun: DVD Review

The first movie in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series was an unexpected surprise. I didn't see it in the theater, but I saw it on DVD and I was surprised how well I enjoyed it. It wasn't one of the greatest movies of all time but it was sure a lot fun. Needless to say, Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow was fantastic and so much fun. Everyone involved was having such a good time it was easy to forget it was a movie based on a Disneyland ride.

Well, the second in the series "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" is now available on DVD. Much like with the first one I did not rush out to the theater to see this. It was the biggest money-making film of 2006 but I did not contribute to that total. I even watched the darn DVD at a friend's house.

Well, the effects are great. Johnny is still amusing. Everyone seems to be glad to be doing another movie, but they just don't seem to be having quite as much fun this time around. It is loud. It has great music. The special effects are dazzling and so is the make up. However, this is a very grim movie and I think it makes a few common but crucial key sequel missteps.

The first is that they filmed the second and third ones at the same time which I always feel is a mistake. Rarely does this work as effective filmmaking. The only time I felt it worked was with the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. It has always been a bad thing every other time. The second one in the series always seems like just a very long and flashy ad for the third movie in the series.

This movie first makes the mistake of assuming everyone who is watching the second one watched the first one until it was completely committed to memory. For those of us who were just casual watchers it was not as if we memorized every single character and what they were doing. Several times throughout this second one I turned toward my friend and asked "was he in the first one?"

This happened with the character of the Commodore. I was so taken with Johnny Depp's performance in the first movie I completely ignored the entire love story between Will Hunter and Elizabeth and the Commodore guy. I was more likely to remember Depp or Geoffrey Rush's performance over any of that.