Review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) by Jamie J — 23 Mar 2017

What you have in 'dead man's chest' is a two and a half hour set up for a supposed finale. What happens to be the curse of most trilogies does hit pretty hard here, in that the story cannot tie up any loose ends whatsoever. Instead merely give you more to mull over.

What was once a pain in the arse with the original cinematic release is taken away for the more modern blu ray viewer, so the pretty poor cliff hanger element is removed from the equation, and what you are left with is a very silly romp through pirate land, where very little has changed for good or for worse.

It's business as usual as far as the main crew are concerned, with Geoffrey Rush out of the picture, we make way for a new villain in the brilliant Davy Jones, played in motion capture form by Bill Nighy. The animation is of an incredibly impressive standard here, with loads of tiny details on his aquatic frame, the same can't be said however for the rest of the crew of the Flying Dutchman, the Kraken or in the ludicrous fight scenes.

If you lopped anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes off of Dead Man's chest's run time you would have a vastly superior film for it, instead you have an enjoyable romp and it is nice to see the same characters again, but it comes off feeling bloated and with little progression.

And a cliffhanger has never been, and shall never be worthy end to a film.