Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

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(Ratings: 1 by Al and 15 by Caryl.)
(See our side-bar page “How Caryl & Al & The Film Snob Rate Movies”)

© A.J. Malouin 2008

(2006/USA. Directed by Gore Verbinski.)
Avast, Mates! It’s pirates for everyone, played broadly and tongue-in-cheek for your summer entertainment.

The “dead man” of the title is Davy Jones. The “chest” of the title is a buried locker which contains Jones’ still-beating heart. Johnny Depp plays Captain Jack Sparrow. His goal is to find the dead man’s chest, and then stab dead the living heart within it. Stabbing that heart will defeat Davy Jones and his crew of dead but still highly effective pirates. It will release the souls of Jones’ crew, and save Sparrow’s soul also. (Apparently his soul is owed to Davy Jones in return for some past Services Rendered.) Depp’s goal of course gets him sideways with Davy Jones. Jones gives Sparrow/Depp the pirate’s famous “Black Spot,” a mark on the hand (or a piece of paper) that promises certain doom to whoever receives it.

Jones also unleashes a fearsome undersea creature who tracks Depp whenever he is on the water. (Being a pirate, Depp’s career requires him to be on the water more often than not.) The creature can swallow entire ships, as well as visiting other similar havoc on the local seascape.

As far as other havoc goes, there’s also the love story between Will Turner (played by Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (played by Kiera Knightley) with which our story line has to contend. These two are the pirate Depp’s friends and therefore get caught up a lot in the gunk of his career moves. There’s also a hint that this love story may be a love Triangle. (Couldn’t you just die?)

As Davy Jones, actor Bill Nighy sports one of the most ingenious make-up jobs in film history. A sort of live-squid hairpiece-and-beard accouterment, it features pasty-white writhing tentacles on his face and head— all the more to accent Jones’ piercing pale-blue eyes. This make-up alone makes “Dead Man’s Chest” worth the price of admission. When Jones smokes his pipe or pipes his organ, the effects are delicious. (Al still swears, however, that he noticed the bump of Jones’ Real nose lump-bumping against his wriggly make-up.)

The movie is full of sly comedy. One series of scenes Al found particularly amusing involved a group of cannibals, chasing Depp and the others through the surf. Depp has just barely escaped being eaten and hundreds of cannibals are chasing their dinner through the surf. When Depp and the others reach the safety of their longboat, the cannibals stand around in a forlorn mope. They suddenly spot a stray dog on the beach. There is a delicious pause— and suddenly hundreds of cannibals are again chasing their dinner through the surf, in the opposite direction.

Amusing summer stuff, that!

Johnny Depp sashays through his swashbuckling, using tons of charisma as his main pirate weapon. We often therefore fear for his career. He seems to lack the killer instinct soooo essential to pirates. Toooo often he relies on the quick retort, rather than the well-placed musket ball.

Playing the center of attention in every scene in which he appears, however, Depp is invincible.

“Dead Man’s Chest” delivers excitement upon excitement upon excitement. It’s just the type of adventure we all expect from a summer-time movie. Caryl rated this movie as totally average, however, saying in doing so that the sword-fight scenes just went on and on and on.

Al found that to be the case, also. He blames it on the adrenaline of the movie, however. A series of excitements leads up to each sword fight. The sword fight seems to go on and on, while Al is sitting there saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah…Just show me that next piece of excitement!”

In an only slightly annoying fashion, “Dead Man’s Chest” is book-ended by what went before it and by what will surely follow later. In the opening scenes, we received references to characters and events that happened in some other movie. In the last scene, we are apparently re-introduced to a character who will lead us through the uncharted waters of the next “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Movies are to be evaluated solely on the basis of what we see on the screen. They are not to be evaluated on the Intention of the writer; nor the career of the director; nor the real-life love affairs of the actors; nor on unseen prequels or gossiped-about sequels. Show us a movie!

As a stand-alone entertainment, therefore “Dead Man’s Chest” rewarded Caryl and Al (who saw it separately) with excitement upon excitement— all of it in grand summer-movie tradition. (2 hrs 30. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of adventure violence, including frightening images.)