Pirates of the Caribeans II: Dead man's chest

[Charney]

Warning, spoilers coming (I alway wanted to write that hehe).

I'm surprised nobody talked about it yet but here it goes. I just seen it yesterday and I must say I was disapointed. It was a good movie but not top notch like the first.

THe main problem for me was that the story took too long before it made sense. And you're thrown into the action without time to breathe before the next action scene (if that makes sense lol). And sometimes, Sparrow has unnecessary complicated dialogues (maybe it was better in English, I saw a translated version).

But the good points are numerous: when I did get the story, it really made sense and it was a good story! The funny scenes are just demently fun! Keira Knightley is just so funny when the three men are fighting over the chest. And the fight scenes are really unbelievable but not too much. Just perfect.

For Ravenloft use now. Mmm, I prefer the Ravenloft version of the Flying Dutchman (aka Pieter van Rhiese). In this movie the Dutch (Davy Jones) doesn't seem too cursed and his ship is just too fantastical. The concept of selling your soul to the Dutchman against some kind of service is very ravenlofty though. Maybe captain van Rhiese could do the same in the Sea of Sorrows. He raises a sunken ship to give you but you have to then come an serve on his ship after you've been captain 13 years. In Van Rhiese's case, this equals death of course.

I give this movie 3.5 blood drops.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

I concur that this movie was not as good as the first. in fact, it was far too self-referencial. They tried to make a lot of the old jokes funny, but just came off as lame. I liked that a lot of the more interesting B-list characters were brought back without too much ado. But some of the a-listers were acting very strange. I suppose this could be attributed to some "growing-up" between the movies, but I was just a little put off by some of the attitude adjustments.

The main villians were mostly disapointing, as well. The effeminite Lord from the East India Company makes a poor and transparent metaphore for the corporations of today attacking liberty.
Davy Jones seemed a lot less scarry than old Barbossa - all flashy gimics and no soul (or I should say, no gaping void where the soul would be). Besides, that scottish accent is laughable. It sounds like it is - a poor attempt to sound foreign. As well, it makes little sense for a scotsman to be captining the Flying Dutchman.
The hench-mutants were neat, but they were too similar to one another. They really should have taken a hint from the 1st movie, where all the pirates were individuals with their own style. True, you had shark-boy and asian-conchshell head - but everyone acted the same and most of everyone looked like the same monster.

I did enjoy the scenery a great deal. we got to go to some interesting places. I just wish that some areas had received more time - such as the cliff-side prison in the first scenes. Perfect dungeon!

This movie loses points for spending too much time setting up the next. True, they did do the Jacksonian thing and film 2 and 3 at the same time, but I still feel that it was a little vulgar.

As a side note. I have read that the Disney company is going to deface the Pirates of the Carribean ride by replacing the pirates chasing the wench with Jack sparrow being chased by Davy Jones and Barbossa. This I feel is the height of poor taste. One might have hoped that a company that makes so much of its money off of nostalgia would cherrish their own legacy.
Rating: 3 parrots

[Brandi]

As a side note. I have read that the Disney company is going to deface the Pirates of the Carribean ride by replacing the pirates chasing the wench with Jack sparrow being chased by Davy Jones and Barbossa. This I feel is the height of poor taste.

Enh, they already spoiled the ride once in the past (having the wenches carry food so it didn't imply the pirates were horny, and ditching the fat woman chasing the pirate).

[Charlatan]

They added Jack in a couple places, hiding in a barrel in one place, sitting next to a treasure chest in another, stuff like that...

Short description of the changes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of ... hancements

Anyway, the movie itself is okay, but not as good as the first one. Haven't seen the whole thing through from begining to end yet, but have heard that it gets a needlessly complicated at times. Thought Davy Jones looked great, a better CGI being than even Gollum. Jones would be a good Ravenloft villian IMO, he's certainly cursed enough at least. Did anyone else notice that Jones and Tia Dalma, the voodoo preistess had identical music boxes? ...they did say that he cut out his own heart after his lover left him, so he wouldn't have the weakness of feeling the pain of love anymore. But it could have been a red herring, maybe Jones' girl merely gave the locket to her as payment for a service. Davy Jones also pauses for a short while when Jack tells him that Will is trying to save the girl he lloves so he can get married, looking briefly emotional. He's a villian, he can't show much weakness, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have them.

There's a short scene at the end of the credits; it's kinda funny, but not sure it's worth the wait.

[Jack of Tears]

If you ask me, the scene following the credits wasn't remotely worth the wait. It irritated me that I sat through that enormouse list of credits for such a worthless shot.

Myself, I didn't care for the Dutchman or her crew - as someone else said, it was too fantastic. I wish they'd used some discretion and made the fish men less conspicuous - perhaps have tentacles writhing beneath their skin and fishlike eyes, the occasional gill ...

This movie fealt like less of a pirate film than the first and more of a fantasy film with boats.

Don't take me wrong, I liked the film, but not so much as the first. Really, it was half an hour too long as well ... the action scenes became monotonous.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Yes, exactly!
I stood around all that time, even as the cleaning staff was getting the theater ready, just waiting and waiting, until finally... nothing!
Just some five second clip of a joke I got the first time they used it.

[Jester of the FoS]

The Dutman's crew just looked like mountains of CG and makeup to me. They never seemed remotely scary or menacing, especially after the skeletal pirates. At best they reminded me of some monsters from Xena where the baddy is some unrecognisable shape of latex and bad puppetry.

The movie was fun. I laughed. But it was too long, set up too much of the sequel and had little real plot.

I sooooo much prefered Superman Returns to this movie.

[JinnTolser]

Wow, that's harsh. Humorously enough, I've also heard that Superman Returns is much too long.

Am I the only one that liked this movie without reservation? Granted the Dutchman's crew was not the least bit scary, but I agree with Charney that the concept of selling years of service on the ship for a reward is very Ravenlofty. The length of the movie didn't bother me at all, nor did the heavy setting up of a sequel (reminded me of Empire Strikes Back very heavily, leading to 10 minutes of drawing parallels to the original Star Wars trilogy!)

And I was really glad to see some of the B-list characters reappear in this movie. I especially liked what they did with Norrington. At the end of the first movie I felt like even though the writers wanted you not to like him since Elizabeth chose Will Turner over him, I still felt sorry for him because he was a good guy who just did what he believed to be right. And now his relentless pursuit of Jack has turned him into a broken, hateful man. Very good downfall, and I'm interested to see where they'll go with the next one.

[Jester of the FoS]

Yes, but bringing back to two pirate henchman was too much. It's a sign of bad sequels when every single sub-plot or minor character of the movie has to be brought back or re-addressed.
Had to bring back Will and Elizabeth and continually put Will into danger despite no one caring one whit about him and every second he's on screen in one second away from Deppe and the only reason to watch the damn movies. They had to bring in Norrington and bring back all the nameless pirate crew of the Pearl whose only real addition to to say a couple lines in key places.
They had to deal with the compass and the undead monkey and the same port city.

[Charney]

This movie fealt like less of a pirate film than the first and more of a fantasy film with boats.

You could not have expressed my feelings any better!

[JinnTolser]

Yes, but bringing back to two pirate henchman was too much. It's a sign of bad sequels when every single sub-plot or minor character of the movie has to be brought back or re-addressed.
Had to bring back Will and Elizabeth and continually put Will into danger despite no one caring one whit about him and every second he's on screen in one second away from Deppe and the only reason to watch the damn movies. They had to bring in Norrington and bring back all the nameless pirate crew of the Pearl whose only real addition to to say a couple lines in key places.
They had to deal with the compass and the undead monkey and the same port city.

Somebody has to crew the ship. The two pirate guys are geared toward the younger audience (remember that this IS a Disney film, and thus intended for kids as well as adults), so I can see why they were brought back. The monkey I don't think was really necessary but I like him anyway. Tortuga was, historically, the only "free" port in the Caribbean and thus a haven for pirates. And it makes sense that Will would start his search there since that was where he went with Jack before.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

The monkey was there for the best joke in the entire film.

[Charney]

I do admit I found it so funny when she asked for payment and Jack says: a Zombie monkey, will that do?

The funny scenes are what saves the movie for me and prevented from falling asleep at some occasions.

[The Wannabe]

Ok......I'll do my usual and disagree with everyone! hahaha...cough, sorry.....

I really liked this movie. Yes, the Dutchman and Jones himself were overdone, but they were still kick-ass. Do I think that they are Ravenloft material? Not as portrayed in the movie. But Davy Jones' motivation, backstory and methods definitely fit in Ravenloft, in my not-so-humble opinion.

I think another good RL point from the movie is the idea of a person doing whatever it takes to preserve themselves. Jack willingly sacrificed Will Turner to save himself from a century of servitude. If he could have gotten away with it, he'd have left Will behind, taken Elizabeth as his own and never lost a moment's sleep over it. Elizabeth herself, in that great scene from the end, essentially murdered Jack to save everyone else, which even though it was necessary still warrants a Powers Check.

As for the idea of using Davy Jones, I think it would be majorly cool as portrayed in the movie, but I wonder if it would be more 'lofty to have him as the darklord of an island in the Nocturnal Sea, who can raise a ship for you in exchange for service, but can never sail on his beloved sea again.

Jackwannabe

[Undead Cabbage]

Hey everyone,

I'm no movie buff, but I'd have to say that this movie has recieved some pretty hard criticism. Mind you, this could simply be because I saw X-men 3, and therefore have significantly lower expectations for movies in general.

Keep in mind what Pirates 2 set out to do. It wasn't an oscar winner by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, it was a fun movie. Nobody is going to watch Pirates 2 for anything but a good laugh, swash buckling, and beloved characters.

Yes, but bringing back to two pirate henchman was too much. It's a sign of bad sequels when every single sub-plot or minor character of the movie has to be brought back or re-addressed.

I'd argue that bringing back Pintel and Ragetti was actually a pretty smart move. As I said, a movie like this was about beloved characters. Pintel and Ragetti were notorious for causing the crowd to break up into laughter, even if it was just slap-stick humor.

Had to bring back Will and Elizabeth and continually put Will into danger despite no one caring one whit about him and every second he's on screen in one second away from Deppe and the only reason to watch the damn movies.

A nice thing about this movie was that Elizabeth Swam wasn't a useless meat sack.

I stood around all that time, even as the cleaning staff was getting the theater ready, just waiting and waiting, until finally... nothing!

I'll grant you that, the wait to the end of the credits wasn't worth it.

Myself, I didn't care for the Dutchman or her crew - as someone else said, it was too fantastic. I wish they'd used some discretion and made the fish men less conspicuous - perhaps have tentacles writhing beneath their skin and fishlike eyes, the occasional gill ...

I'll agree that the Dutchman's crew was aesthetically fantastic, however over all the sequel was darker. I'd argue that the original movie was definately much more disney than the second.

In the first movie, good and evil where two very defined things. You had Will and Elizabeth righteously sailing to the song of virtue, while some of the main villians were left a paper thin role. In the second movie, this changes. With the exception of Will Turner (who is unfortunately one of those cases when good is boring) each and every character developed into a very Hobbsian struggle for self preservation (or in some chases, simply fleeting self interests).

The plot weaved. You couldn't watch the movie for five minutes without something new and unexpected to pop up (sort of like a really well written play). The most common complaint about this movie was that it was too complicated. And yet, the most common complaint about the original movie was that it was too simple, with a cookie cutter plot.

It's a movie about pirates setting out on a fantastic voyage. At least in my opinion, the movie delivered what it promised...unlike X-men 3, whose director deserves to be lined up and shot.