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Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest review
:. Director: Gore Verbinski
:. Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom
:. Running Time: 2:30
:. Year: 2006
:. Country: USA
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Fear. Despair. Misery. Hopelessness. Exhaustion. Anguish. Nausea. That's how I felt in the movie theater watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest. I haven't walked out of a film in over 10 years but in the final stretch I got my sea legs and preferred to walk the plank rather than suffer needlessly.
Johnny Depp returns as the irascible Jack Sparrow, but this time his onscreen presence has been mutinied by a ghost plot, not very threatening barnacle-faced men, another not-so-scary squid-headed captain with tentacles for a beard (almost makes me excited to see Samuel Jackson's Snakes on a Plane later this summer), and a lackluster love story (featuring the return of the bland Orlando Bloom and the dull Keira Knightly). A convoluted storyline and flat dialogue only add to the horror.
In a misguided effort to be diverse the film plunges directly into offensive stereotypes, from the crazed, easily tricked cannibal tribe ready to sacrifice their ooga-booga god Jack Sparrow to the voodoo witchy woman who lives in a swamp. What should be an action-packed adventure on the high seas turns into a Jerry Bruckheimer on Red Bull Cocktail with a side of cliché peanuts that lack salt: buried treasure chest, ghost ship, desert island, obnoxious parrot; the list goes on and on.
The pirate movie that felt refreshing in 2003 morphed into cinematic quicksand that swallowed up anything interesting in the sequel. Can Keith Richards save Pirates of the Caribbean 3?
Anji Milanovic
 Pirates of the Caribbean
Movie Reviews: American Films
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