I thoroughly enjoyed the first Pirates Of The Caribbean movie and would count myself amongst those who having seen that movie had been eagerly awaiting the inevitable sequel.

I have loved pirate movies since I was a kid, watching classics like Captain Blood, The Black Swan, Captain Kidd, Treasure Island…umm, I even liked the somewhat widely panned Cutthroat Island when it was released in the 90’s so when I heard Disney was backing a big budget pirate movie with the likes of Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush starring, I was all over it.

No surprise then That I was one of the first in line for the first showing of this movie at my local movie theatre the day it was put on general release.

Was this sequel a disappointment?

Hell no!

Pirates of the Carribean : Dead Man’s Chest is a rip-snorting, action packed rollercoaster of a pirate movie. It has few pretentions to be anything other than a whole heck of a lot of fun and in that it delivers on all its promises.

In this sequel, the curse of The Black Pearl may have been lifted but now an even more dangerous problem faces Jack Sparrow and the crew of the Black Pearl. It seems Jack (Johnny Depp) owes something of a debt to the legendary Davy Jones (an unrecognisable Bill Nighy) captain of the accursed Flying Dutchman…his very soul.

If Jack is to prevent himself becoming one of Davy Jones’ crew of phantom sailors he has to find a way to beg, cheat, lie or con his way out of his pledge, which leads to a thrill ride adventure involving cannibals, voodoo, legendary sea monsters, phantom sailors and generally one whole lotta fun!

Oh sure, the storyline is a little overly convoluted, the comedy a little on the wooden side when delivered by Bloom and Knightley and the acting more hammy than Miss Piggy’s butt cheeks but toss aside your grouchy adult persona and find your inner pirate-loving child and this movie is a stonker.

Just on the visual side alone there is a lot of eye candy on display here (and I don’t mean miss Knightley either). The kraken in a fantastic beastie, Davey Jones’ crew is suitably bizarrely fused with sealife and the Bahamas setting makes for some sumptuous scenery.

This is one of those leave-your-brain-at-the-door affairs which most people love and most critics hate. Personally, I loved it although it does suffer slightly from “middle of a trilogy syndrome” in that, it doesn’t exactly ‘end’.

Still, as a modern day movie-goer you’re used to that right?

Rating: 8/10

 

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