CNS Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

By David DiCerto
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Director Gore Verbinski, the man who put the jolly back in the Jolly Roger with 2003's sleeper hit, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," delivers more of the same rip-roaring fun in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" (Disney).

For a sequel, the new movie matches -- if not tops -- the original as first-rate popcorn entertainment with all the right ingredients: action-adventure, spectacle, screwball comedy and a bit of romance. It even has an outrageous three-way swordfight on a runaway mill wheel. But most importantly, it has Johnny Depp, who once again steals the show as the mascaraed and rum-sotted rogue Capt. Jack Sparrow. (His screen entrance is one of the more hilarious in recent memory.)

Sparrow finds himself back in a sea of supernatural trouble as he tries to wiggle his way out of a Faustian pact with the fabled Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), the squid-faced captain of the Flying Dutchman ghost ship, who rules the deep and gives new meaning to the term "octo-puss."

Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley return as Will Turner and his bonnie bride-to-be, Elizabeth Swann, who before they tie the knot are arrested by the nefarious British bureaucrat and pirate hunter Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), who presses them into tracking down Sparrow and swiping his magic compass.

They all end up questing after the same object: Jones' legendary locker, the content of which will give its possessor control of the briny main.

Amid the swashbuckling slapstick there are some slightly darker moments and scary supernatural elements that, while mostly harmless, preclude giving the film an A-I classification. There are also a few scenes involving a tentacled sea monster known as the Kraken -- a computer-generated cousin of the giant squid in Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" -- that may be too intense for the wee ones.

The story and characters have about as much flesh as a peg leg, but the skeletal plot is kept afloat by several riotous set pieces pulled off as before with flair by Verbinski, imaginative effects and makeup, and some solid supporting performances by Nighy and a barnacled Stellan Skargsgard as Bootstrap Bill, Will's long-lost father. There are also funny turns by Lee Arenberg and Mackenzie Crook as a pair of bungling buccaneers.

"Dead Man's Chest" is a bit too long. But while it plows many of the same comic waters as the original -- and granted, the idea based on a Disney theme-park attraction is stretched thin -- its good-natured goofiness demonstrates that there is still enough wind in the franchise's sails to justify the third installment set up by the cliffhanger ending.

If crustacean-limbed ghost crews and comical cannibals don't shiver your timbers, you may want to think twice about dropping your anchor, but if you liked the first movie this pirates' life is for ye, matey.

The film contains recurring action-adventure violence and peril, including a nongraphic throat cutting and off-screen executions, a fleeting gruesome image, some intense sequences and frightening supernatural effects, voodoo hokum, lightly suggestive humor and innuendo, and a mildly rude expression. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II -- adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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DiCerto is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.

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Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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