A Pirates of the Caribbean sequel – which was anticipated to the extent that they thought an original movie with a lugubrious subtitle (The Curse of the Black Pearl) was a good idea – wasn’t anticipated enough for them (the filmmakers) to know what to do. And there were two ways they could go. Either make a standalone sequel, in the manner of the Indiana Jones series (which Pirates echoes by updating an outdated genre), with the further adventures of one Jack Sparrow. Or don’t simply perpetuate Pirates piecemeal, but turn it into Serious Drama, a trilogy, as was the style at the time.
They went with the second one – a trilogy – a decision which would dictate the very evolution of this series.
And not just any trilogy, but with sequels filmed back-to-back, as one mega movie ya gotta pay twice for (one sees why the moneymen would get behind such an endeavor). This is an ancient cinematic practice, but it has its modern precedent in the Back to the Future sequels. But that’s all just technicalities. What every such trilogy really wants to be is Star Wars, and thus operates under delusions of grandeur and mono-mything. And so, far from Pirates of the Caribbean standing as a welcome frivolous alternative to more self-serious fare such as Lord of the Rings and The Matrix (two contemporary multi-sequel-at-once franchises), these Pirates films do the same sort of narrative, only in a high seas milieu.
Creating a macro-narrative trilogy demands a single thread running throughout – even in the non-trilogy first Pirates. So screenwriters Ted Eliot and Terry Rossio struggle to locate a deeper plot in that one-off…unsuccessfully. Instead, that first Pirates is now just setup for the main characters, who must face a two-movie arc, starting with Dead Man’s Chest.
These conditions are not ideal for creating a flawless blockbuster. Despite a multi-year lead-in, screenwriting wasn’t complete by the time Dead Man’s Chest was filming…leading to moments when both director Gore Verbinski and super-Sparrow-star Johnny Depp frankly didn’t know what was going on. This situation – lack of prep, inflated and unwanted ambitions – brings out the worst in the writers, whose former overreliance upon exposition (slightly justified as thematic storytelling) now runs hog wild.
Because the first film was a delicious stew of basically all pirate clichés – with planks and treasure maps and parrots and wenches tossed in simply because it’s expected– now Dead Man’s Chest must stretch further for material. (Furthermore, references to the Disneyland ride are now woefully nil, evidence of the series moving beyond its inspiration’s shadow.) Now the Pirates milieu seems to be maritime tropes altogether. Those are largely supernatural tropes, because no trilogy can compete without succumbing to the same damned fantasy format as the rest.
So in a vain effort to one-up ghost skeleton pirate zombies, Dead Man’s Chest delivers fish monsters, ghost ships, Eldritch abominations and one very pissy Kraken. (Plus an undead monkey, and be prepared for confusion if you didn’t see that post-movie tag which established said simian in the first place.) The rules governing fish-fiends, the damnéd crew of one mythical Davy Jones (Bill Nighy, his pus shining through impressive octopus CGI), change with time, as the ever-changing script demands new arbitrary scenarios to allow for the preplanned set pieces. This is the cart leading the horse, as it were, lumpy storytelling where crazy ideas are concocted (hey, what if Jack were to randomly go to a Turkish prison somehow here in the Polynesian Caribbean Wherever?), then awkwardly justified through deathless expository scenes. Said chat is nakedly in service of delivering swashbuckling…which, it must be said, pales compared to the first, since an increased reliance upon CGI removes the light sense of play which made Black Pearl an audience favorite. And when – suddenly! – you can’t have Davy Jones emerging onto land for a climactic six-way swordfight, because his strengths would overpower the scene, well then, just announce suddenly that he “cannot step foot [or claw-tentacle-something] on land” except for “every ten years.” Part of that does service Part Three, but that doesn’t benefit us now. Man, the metaphysics of all this are oh so wonky!
Having discussed Dead Man’s Chest as a potpourri of random set pieces, basically, with a script running way overlong to account for them all (one and a half hours needed to create one swordfight = not efficient filmmaking), what of the plot, so-called? Evidently (if you’re somehow relying solely upon this slap-happy blog for a synopsis), Davy Jones, Captain Cthulhu himself, is the villain – with his suckers set on (Captain) Jack Sparrow concerning some ten-year-old debt which retcons Jack’s former possession of the Black Pearl – all this is back story in Part One as well, repeated or assumed here. Okay, ignoring the complications, basically a really clever monster wants to “get” Jack Sparrow, and Jack must escape this damnation. Through simply killing the monster?...Eh, perhaps, though the same complications which created this evil vs. not-as-evil tale also make things never that simple. We’ll get to why.
Meanwhile, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) are back, and one must ask, “Whyyyyyy?!” This is the primest evidence that the trilogy route wasn’t the right one for Pirates, since that approach demands all characters continue on, as if they have further stories to tell. But for this duo, a love story was all they had to tell, and that was over. Eh, except they didn’t wed, so…just postpone that at movie’s start, then arbitrarily keep ‘em apart throughout the picture in that romantic comedy sort of way, and there ya go. Oh, and toss in a secondary villain as well, one Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), head of the East India Trading Company, the aquatic equivalent of the Star Wars Empire. Beckett, ever the ambitious capitalist (“Boo!” we’re expected to say, prodded on by the money-grubbing executives who so oft vilify their fellow plutocrats), is taming the Seven Seas, and getting rid of pirates. In real world terms, the polar opposite of evil, except this franchise has already re-defined “pirate” not to mean “illegal software downloader” – er, I mean, “rape-crazed, murdering sea burglar” – but “hippie.” Pirates are just free spirits who don’t want to live by your rules, man! Oh dear god, this being a 2006 movie, I do fear we’ve got us an artless anti-Bush Doctrine screed, and Lord knows those things play like gangbusters.
So…two sets of villains, and events conspiring to reunite Jack, Will and Elizabeth (and also James Norrington – Jack Davenport – because all former characters must remain). This eventually comprises even more supporting characters on down the line – Gibbs, Pintel, Ragetti, that key dog even – with each given some treacle about “destiny” or “desire” or some movie terminology for heightened dramatics. Ugh!
In terms of overall arc, these people are the Rebels. Even with things confused at Dead Man’s Chest’s end, it’s clear the ultimate goal is to pretty much just retell the monomyth, and hope we don’t notice. There are preoccupations masking that end. In Black Pearl, Jack Sparrow was bracingly amoral, a good guy only when plot circumstances conspired to align his motives with the film’s (the more they insist upon this approach, the more strongly the writer’s hand will be felt). But now, it seems all characters share that amorality.
Extended exposition aims to create new and distinct motives for somewhere around half a dozen different parties, each seeking the titular heart (which can either kill or control Davy Jones, Master of All the Seas Except When He Isn’t). Thus, rather than revert to action-heavy swordplay immediately (boy, never thought I’d be arguing for more senseless violence in a movie), they endlessly barter, dealing and counter-dealing and counter-counter-counter-counter-dealing until the sea cows come home – but I gotta hold off on this thread, because I know At World’s End is nigh. But the effect of it, even by this stage, is that everyone has adopted some of Jack’s modus operandi. For Jack, the most inexperienced fighter and generally the weakest character, mastering this skill made him instead the most formidable member of the Pirates universe. Now that everyone’s doing it (possibly inspired by Jack’s former antics), he recedes into the background.
Oh right, Jack Sparrow. Odd that one could say so much about Dead Man’s Chest without addressing him, the very reason these things are a franchise in the first place. Well, the cat’s out of the bag, as Davy Jones himself says at one point. Jack was formerly a grand shock to both the standard pirate procedure, as well as blockbusters as a whole. Now, the same thing is expected – and there’s no better way to curtail zaniness than to anticipate it. Oh, and those writers, now they know Johnny Depp will play a drunken, bisexual lunatic. It influences their writing. Jack then becomes a bit of a buffoon, as every element struggles to reinforce what was once so breezy, to the point where his persona barely registers at all. And then Depp started leaning upon that method as his S.O.P. (see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or Alice in Wonderland, or possibly the next thing he’ll do with Tim Burton).
The star is compromised. With the only semi-functional Dead Man’s Chest on display for examination, it’s simple to identify just how Jack is underserved – what with the self-conscious approach, or the myth-laden plot, or the efforts to glom on a three-film character arc. Though one could say that no sequel would’ve served Jack perfectly – that’s the problem with repetition, it doesn’t serve everything perfectly. Certain Pirates elements – the action – have demonstrated historically to be great sequel fodder, as that is a repeatable thrill, easier to duplicate. It’s far harder to maintain a character for the long term, and Jack’s in-your-face abnormality suffers greatly from a loss of novelty.
With Johnny Depp a shadow of his former Sparrow, it’s surprising to find that the lone player still working at full capacity is Verbinski. At least, as the film’s visual fabric is concerned, for let us assume that contractually he had no way to influence the story’s slipshod shabbiness, its sickly unseaworthy structure. To merely behold, Dead Man’s Chest is wonderful eye candy, with far greater artistry than most of its fellow summer tent poles – credit it as a period piece, which necessitates an all-encompassing visual touch, and allows for greater control of tone. The images continue to recall N.C. Wyeth’s illustrations for “Treasure Island,” all golden hues and rich, baroque textures. The whole of the production design crew must be credited, for delivering the film’s themes (about encroaching modernity into the realm of piracy, which we all know no longer exists today – [cough!]) with much greater subtlety than the screenplay. Even the CGI feels at home, which is something.
Divorced even from his behind-the-scenes crew, Verbinski carries a certain skill. Individually, there are many tremendous sequences in Dead Man’s Chest. The first true action sequence – which comes an unforgivable 40 minutes into the film – is the climax to a half hour of cannibal island hijinks. To criticize plot, there is NO reason for this extended detour to exist – it’s the purest manifestation of Wacky Wayside Tribes I’ve ever seen. Furthermore, it’s kinda stupefying that they reverted to man-eating Pacific Islander stereotypes in 2006. Okay, so ignoring all these massive, massive issues, when our heroes do escape, it’s a fun little moment. Most desperately flee in a spherical bone cage (a…rib cage?!), equal parts zorb and hamster ball. Jack, always the standout, vaults about on…let’s see if I can even phrase this…on a bamboo skewer weighted by assorted mangos. The result is more Buster Keaton than Errol Flynn – surely, this ain’t no swashbuckling! – and it’s kinda more funny than thrilling. And one cannot credit Jack’s ridiculous plunge from a cliff at all. Ah, but without expectations, there are nuggets of elevated slapstick goodness in here – It helps that I really like Buster Keaton.
The partner to this sequence is the nearly climactic water wheel fight. Picture a three-way duel (and ignore the heaps of effort it took to get Jack fighting Will fighting James), upon a water wheel (read: hamster wheel; someone here must love hamsters – possibly Jack) spinning wildly through the jungle. Oh, and it’s all practical! For fleeting moments when the movie goes “full retard,” it becomes transcendental, almost by accident.
But then the real climax isn’t such action-as-comedy silliness. It’s a Kraken attack. Which is neat to see, to witness the iconic “giant squid vs. ship” scenario from so many Nantucket paintings, but it remains just dudes in pirate costumes flailing before so much CGI. It’s kind of the up-market equivalent of all those SyFy Originals, and this might be Sharktopus done right, but it’s still the Sharktopus mentality.
And when the movie ends, well…it doesn’t end! I pity anyone in theaters not knowing this aims to be the Empire Strikes Back of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, because this boasts that classic middle chapter lack of resolution. More specifically, the final half hour (amidst what should be frivolous squid amputations) takes that trademark Pirates route of over-strenuous exposition. (Talking way to much – that’s something this blog is intimately familiar with.) Plot threads are stretched so horridly you have no idea how they’re going to resolve them – because the writers didn’t either. And here they are:
• Davy Jones and Beckett join forces (off screen), to become an Axis of Evil or whatever.
• Jack Sparrow is eaten whole by the Kraken, not dead (death becoming a most nebulous thing in this franchise), but rather taken to Davy Jones’ Locker. Or, to rephrase it, Jack is frozen in carbonite. Because every such trilogy falsely removes a major character at this stage – Han Solo, obviously. Neo trapped in limbo. The Doc sent to the Old West. Gandalf plunged to the depths with the Balrog. At any rate, that maps out the First Act of Part Three.
• Will and Elizabeth see their relationship strained, over treachery and deceit and seduction. To boil it down, it’s the same sort of misunderstanding that defined “Three’s Company,” so I continue in my disinterest of their plotline.
• Oh, and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) returns for the final pre-credits shot, to remind us of something this movie was sorely lacking. And to promise that just maybe some piratical nonsense might be restored for the third.
• Also, some claptrap about destiny and fate and gods and dirt.
Okay, so there are some…issues with Dead Man’s Chest – though in a two-parter, it’s unwise to form conclusions before things are wrapped up. That’ll be At World’s End. And that “final” film’s success will indicate the true worth of Dead Man’s Chest, in audiences’ eyes. For while Dead Man’s Chest has been unfathomably successful monetarily – the fourth highest grossing film ever, worldwide – one can assume that was largely due to audience love for the first. Recall, The Curse of the Black Pearl was a sleeper hit, the little blockbuster that could. That it made bucks at all was a triumph. For the bloated second to do well was expected. For it to be good…well, not so much.
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