KY review – Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest

of course, we only got to see it from the 13th onwards..

So I went for the much awaited Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest on the opening day last week with a few noobs. If you don’t care enough for the first movie or this one, you can skip through all the text and maybe spend 5 seconds on the awesome pic I photoshopped down at the bottom of this post? Otherwise read on..

When the title flashed on the screen, the Malay translation on Dead Men’s Chest was “Harta Lelaki Mati”, following the tradition of producing awesome translations such as Eraser – “Pemadam”, Spider-man – “Manusia Laba Laba”, Saving Private Ryan – “Selamatkan Ryan Peribadi”.. ok maybe not the last one. GSC at 1U put us through half an hour of bullshit before starting the movie at 10pm when the ticket says 9:30pm. This is getting to be almost as bad as Chinese wedding, remind me to be late by at least 20 minutes next time.

Pirates 2 is pretty much a continuation of the first installation, The Curse of the Black Pearl. Returning roles are Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow (duh), Orlando Bloom as Will Turner, Keira Knightly as Liz Swann, Liz’s Dad, Norrington, and a few others, most of Jack’s crew, including the first officer. The new characters of importance are Davey Jones and his crew, Dalma, and Will’s father.

The story revolves around the British navy trying to secure Jack’s compass by pressing charges on Will and Elizabeth to force Will to search for Jack, now captain of the Black Pearl. Apparently Jack’s compass always points to where your desire is. When Will got to Jack and asked for the compass, Jack of course, being a pirate, didn’t really care about his friends and were only concern about himself and his deal with Davey Jones that were coming up.

The movie then got us into the adventure that features sword fights between Jack, Will, and Norrington, battle between the Black Pearl and The Flying Dutchman (Davey Jone’s ship), Jack’s crews escape from cannibals, Will’s father, the two visits to Dalma the voodoo lady, … and then it ended.

Much to my dismay, unlike the first one, this movie does not stand on its own. After 2.5 hours, we discovered that the ending lies on the 3rd and final installation of the Pirates franchise. Then again, with Chow Yun Fatt and the return of captain Barbosa, it might make things really interesting.

Overall the movie was pretty good, the lack of the element of surprise that gave such an impact on the first film was undoubted lacking. However, the visual effect team did manage to make up for some of the losses by producing a very stunning visual treat that blends in very nicely with the story and not appearing fake at any instance. The effect on Davey Jones’ character was particularly impressive.

As for the story, it was a quite entertaining, albeit some what slow in the beginning of the film. Johnny Depp did not disappoint either. I’ll give it a 7 out of 10 and an 8 for the first movie. Will definitely go for the 3rd installation next year.

our local Suanie Jones and Fag Sparrow