Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

What’s the Story?

"You have a debt to pay," says an ominous voice. "You owe Davy Jones your soul. That was the agreement. Time's up!" And so begins the second installment of the franchise that's turning pirates into rock stars of the new millennium. Yes, the loopy Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is caught in yet another tangled web of ghostly creatures lurking deep in the ocean. It seems that he owes a blood debt to the legendary Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), ruler of the ocean and captain of the Flying Dutchman. And, oh yeah, his beard is made up of creepy tentacles! To find the chest, "you must sail to da ends of da eart' and beyond," proclaims Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris), a mysterious voodoo priestess. In short, unless Jack can figure a way out of this predicament, he'll be doomed to an afterlife of eternal damnation and slavery. Being a pirate and an opportunist, Jack doesn't shy away from enlisting the help of his old friends, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and his fiance, Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightly), who've been thrown into prison by the evil Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander), a representative of the East India Trading Company. Beckett has his own plan to keep Davy Jones and his ghoulish pirates from attacking his company's ships.

Is It Any Good?

This movie is all about Johnny Depp, who camps it up from one action-packed scene to the next. Let's see…there's a giant sea monster, voodoo princess, barnacle-encrusted pirates, desert island, hungry cannibals, buried treasure, ghost ship, insane sword fight, and every other pirate cliche you can think of. Really, it gets a little exhausting, and after the first hour or two, the whole thing starts to wear on your psyche, even Depp's drunken pirate schtick, which seemed so fresh and fun in the first movie. The story line puts Will and Elizabeth's romance on the back burner, and that's what helped to give the first movie some depth. Still, this movie is a lot of fun, moves along fairly well, and ends with a great cliffhanger into Pirates 3. It would have been better if they'd chopped off about 30 minutes in the middle.

Kudos to Stellan Skarsgard (Good Will Hunting), who gives a heart-wrenching performance as Bootstrap Bill, and to Bill Nighy (Love Actually), who deserves a "best villain" award for bringing Davy Jones to life in all his tentacled glory.