Review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) by Cody L — 18 Feb 2013

This one harder for me, I still love this one in the series and highly recommend it still. But parts that made the first unique and memorable seemed repetitive. Johnny Depp is as entertaining as ever, and the darker tone was excellent.

But there are several things about the sequel that I thought fell short of the first. The new supporting characters aren't as memorable, they're not badly acted but nothing about them really stuck with me.

Davy Jones is an eerie and fairly effective replacement for Barbossa as the main antagonist, but even though Jones has a history with Jack, it still lacks the personal connection that made Jack's rivalry with Barbossa so memorable.

New secondary villain Cutler Beckett is forgettable, he's a stereotypical lord and buisnessman, out to make gold and eradicate piracy and what not. His interest in the supernatural side concerning Davy Jone's heart dont really make him unique.

The plot is still good but it lacks the wonder, while the first movie still had a dark side, at the heart was a pirate looking for his lost ship, there's a certain sense of wonder in that. The follow up's plot centered on Jack evading death and avoiding losing it all again.

This doesn't make it a bad plot, and it was still great to watch, but the change in theme dissipated the great sense of wonder of the first film. All in all I would still recommend it to anyone, but it ultimately failed to live up to the wonder of its predecessor.