Review - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

         Hey guys, Chuck here. After the success of Curse of the Black Pearl, Disney and Bruckheimer would return to the world of Pirates of the Caribbean with two sequels filmed back-to-back. The first of these sequels, Dead Man's Chest, was released in 2006 and would see the return of director Gore Verbinski, writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, as well as cast members Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce, Kevin R. McNally, Lee Arenberg, Mackenzie Crook, and Martin Klebba. Joining the cast would include the likes of Tom Hollander, Naomie Harris, David Schofield, Stellan Skarsgard, and Bill Nighy. So, let's dive into Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

        The movie opens on a rainy morning in Port Royal, where Elizabeth Swann is waiting for her wedding to begin. Unfortunately, Will Turner (the groom) is arrested by members of the East India Trading Company, who are acting on orders from the King of England. The company's leader, Lord Cutler Beckett, has three arrest warrants: one each for Will, Elizabeth, and Norrington, the latter of whom has resigned his commission and is no longer in Port Royal. As for the charges: conspiring to set free a man convicted of crimes against the Crown, and condemned to death. The punishment: death. In other words, Will, Elizabeth, and Norrington are charged for freeing Jack Sparrow.

         Jack, meanwhile , is off fetching something from a Turkish prison. What exactly? A piece of cloth with a drawing of a strange key on it. The crew thinks that Jack is after what the key unlocks, as well as the key itself, but Jack is completely nuts and has no idea where he's going. This is a bit concerning for two of his crew members, Marty and Gibbs. Back in Port Royal, Beckett makes a deal to release Will in exchange for his assistance. Beckett requests Will look for Jack and collect the one thing most precious to him: his signature compass. 

          In the night, while Jack goes to look for more rum, he has an encounter with Bootstrap Bill, who had made a deal with Davy Jones after Barbossa and his crew strapped him to a cannon and left him in the bottom of the ocean. However, it's Jack's deal with Jones that brings Bootstrap to the Pearl, as Jack had been captain of the Pearl for thirteen years after Jones raised it from the ocean floor. So, Jack has two options: serve one hundred years on the Flying Dutchman, or spend eternity in Davy Jones' Locker, sent there along with the Pearl by Jones' pet: the Kraken. Bootstrap marks Jack with the Black Spot and leaves, forcing Jack to make way to the nearest landmass. 

         Will, meanwhile, reveals the deal he made with Beckett, and heads off to find Jack. Starting his search in Tortuga, Will ends up with a few false leads, but one promising lead: an island where a ship is beached...a ship with black sails. Realizing this lead is referring to the Pearl, Will is taken to the island, which is home to a tribe of cannibals, and he is captured. The cannibals made Jack their chief, believing him to be a god in human form, and they will devour him when the drumming stops. Will and half of the crew escape (the other half doesn't make it) and make their way to the Pearl, which is being dragged back Into the water by Pintel and Ragetti, who escaped from prison in Port Royal. How? They tricked the dog that carries the keys to the cells. Jack also escapes, rejoins the crew, and they set sail elsewhere. The cannibals, meanwhile, spot the dog and try to do with it what they wanted to do with Jack. 

        Back in Port Royal, Governor Swann attempts to smuggle Elizabeth back to England, believing he still has good standing with the King. Unfortunately, the captain he hired is dead at the hands of Beckett's top lieutenant Mercer. Elizabeth meets with Beckett to negotiate, taking his Letters of Marque, made valid by Beckett's signature and seal, where she intends to give them to Will to secure his freedom. Elizabeth sneaks aboard a merchant ship, which she has set off towards Tortuga. Jack, Will, and the Pearl crew, meanwhile, head off to meet an old friend, Tia Dalma, and give her Barbossa's pet monkey, also called Jack, as payment in exchange for information. It's here where Tia Dalma tells the legend of Davy Jones. According to the story, Jones was a fantastic sailor, until the day he fell in love with a woman. The pain of his love was too much to live with, but not enough to cause him to die. So, Jones cut his heart out, locked it in a chest, buried the chest, and continued holding on to the key. Also, Tia Dalma gives Jack a means of protection while at sea: a jar of dirt. 

        Tia Dalma then points the crew of the Pearl to the direction of where the Dutchman will be next. Will heads over to a shipwreck, where the surviving crew is beset upon by the crew of the Dutchman, all of whom are men with the features of aquatic creatures and aquatic like on their bodies and faces. Will puts up a decent fight, but is overpowered. And it's here where we finally meet Davy Jones, who gives the shipwreck survivors an opportunity to join the crew of the Dutchman, which some do, but others don't and are killed. Will, when asked of his business at the shipwreck, he says it's to settle Jack's debt. Jones looks off into the distance, and he and his crew arrive aboard the Pearl. Jones then gives Jack three days to collect a total of one hundred souls, keeping Will as a faith payment, in exchange for Jack's freedom. So, Jack and the crew set off to reinforce their ranks in Tortuga. Among the new crew members they pick up, one is the disgraced Norrington, and another is Elizabeth. So, Jack has Elizabeth use the compass to locate the island where Jones buried the chest containing his heart.

          So, while we get some development between Elizabeth, Jack, and Norrington, we also get a lot of stuff with Will on the Dutchman. First off, Will meets his father, Bootstrap, but causes an accident, and is set by the Bosun to receive five lashings. Bootstrap attempts to take the punishment instead, given that Will is his son, but Jones insists that either Bootstrap himself deliver the lashes against Will, or else the Bosun will do it. Knowing how much worse it will be at the hands of the Bosun, Bootstrap begrudgingly delivers Will's punishment personally, later revealing the Bosun prides himself on cleaving flesh from bone with every lash. So, Bootstrap's actions were done out of compassion for his son. Later, Will watches the crew play a game of Liar's Dice, and then challenges Davy Jones to a game. The stakes: his soul against Jones' key. Bootstrap then gets into the game, matching Will's wager. Unfortunately, Bootstrap loses and will thus spend an eternity aboard the Dutchman. However, the game was all about learning where the key was. That night, while everyone is asleep, Will nabs the key, and Bootstrap sends him off aboard a small boat, which later is picked up by the same merchant ship Elizabeth was on. The captain reveals that they made a decent off-the-books profit in Tortuga, after they were led there by Elizabeth, pretending to be a spirit. Unfortunately, Jones catches up with the merchant ship, and summons the Kraken to attack it, forcing Bootstrap to watch the carnage. After the chaos, no sign of Will is found, and Jones orders his crew to make way to Isla Cruces, which is where the chest is buried. 

        Unfortunately, the Pearl got there first, and Jack, Elizabeth, Norrington, Pintel, and Ragetti dig the chest up. Will arrives, and he, Jack, and Norrington end up in a three-way swordfight. Jack can't let Will stab Jones' heart, as no one will be able to stop the Kraken if Jones is dead. Norrington, however, wants the heart as a means of getting his job in the Royal Navy back via Beckett's pardon. Yeah, that's what the Letters of Marque were for, a single pardon. And I will say, the fight between these three fantastic swordsmen is awesome, especially with Will and Norrington fighting on top of a rolling watermill wheel. Meanwhile, Jones' crew also shows up, and they end up fighting the likes of Jack, Elizabeth, and Pintel and Ragetti. Jack does get the heart, and sticks in in the dirt jar, only for Norrington to take it later, heading off on his own afterwards. 

        Back on the Pearl, a ship-to-ship battle ensues between the Pearl and the Dutchman. However, the Dutchman falls back, and the Kraken is summoned. Will leads the.charge to fend off the Beast, and Jack, who left earlier, returns to help. After hurting the Kraken, Jack orders the ship to be abandoned, with Jack being left behind by Elizabeth, who put him in irons. Jack slipped out, and faces the Kraken head on. As for Norrington, he returns to Beckett in Port Royal, his name filled in on the Letters of Marque, and handing over Jones' heart in exchange for his pardon. The surviving crew of the Pearl, which consists of Will, Elizabeth, Gibbs, Marty, Cotton, Pintel, and Ragetti, arrive at Tia Dalma's house, where she asks if any of them were willing to sail to the ends of the Earth and beyond to save Jack and the Pearl. When they all say yes, she tells them they need a Captain who knows the waters at world's end, revealing that Barbossa is alive, once again. 

       Okay, so a few positives about Dead Man's Chest. First off, the performances. Depp, Bloom, Knightley, and the rest of the returning cast is phenomenal once again. Stellan Skarsgard was terrific as Bootstrap Bill, as were Naomie Harris as Tia Dalma and Tom Hollander as Beckett. However, the most memorable new addition is Bill Nighy as Davy Jones. The visual effects used on this guy still hold up all these years later, and he truly looks like a terrifying villain. 

       Of course, also, there's the visual effects, set design, costume design, and sword designs, the latter being the work of Tony Swatton once again. And the work Industrial Light & Magic did with the designs of Jones' crew was way better than that of Barbossa's crew in the first movie. Seeing a man with the head of a Hammerhead Shark, a man with a cheek of a pufferfish, a man with an eel head, and of course the starfish on Stellan Skarsgard's face was pretty impressive. And, the Flying Dutchman itself looked like something out of a nightmare. 

         Now, while Klaus Badelt composed the score for Curse of the Black Pearl, music producer Hans Zimmer took over as film composer this time, and it's absolutely fantastic. Obviously, many themes and leitmotifs composed by Badelt are reused here, but the new themes are absolutely amazing. 

         However, the story for me is something of a mixed bag. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot I enjoyed about it. However, it's clearly not finished. In other words, Dead Man's Chest isn't so much a movie as it is a prologue, meaning you had to wait a full year to see the end of the story this movie sets up. Overall, however, I still had fun with this movie, and I still enjoy it for what it is. So, I'm giving Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest a rating of 4.25/5. 

        Okay guys, this is Chuck signing off, and I'll see you guys tomorrow when we get back into the world of Pirates of the Caribbean with At World's End.