Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest & At World's End

While, I, like countless other movie goers, am a little sick of the perpetual franchise factory that Hollywood has become, there are times where I wish the filmmakers had a clear direction for future films ahead of time. Case in point are the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels whose plots are so scatological and convoluted that they feel like they were written as one movie, stretched into two, and then someone forgot to go back and edit accordingly. Granted the excitement level was so high after the first film that nothing was going to stop these two movies from making money, because if the Matrix sequels taught us anything it's that quickly rushed out sequels to a film that was a breath of fresh air always work...(god I wasted so much hope on sequels in the 2000s). Regardless, saying that the Pirates sequels can't match the original is hardly a revolutionary statement, but the real question is why didn't they? Well let's find out.

Taking place shortly after the first film, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann's nuptials are interrupted by a vicious East India agent looking for Jack Sparrow. With their wedding in the balance, Will and Elizabeth begin concurrent missions to track down Jack. Jack, however, has troubles of his own as the horrifying Davey Jones and his monstrous Kraken is looking to reclaim a debt. Soon Jack and company will begin a battle against Jones and the East India company with the pirate way of life in the balance.

The Story is All Over the Place and Needlessly Complicated

I alluded to this in my review of Curse of the Black Pearl, but the stories for the sequels are some of the most needlessly dense movies I've ever watched. It feels like a new character, back story, or mythological element is introduced every other scene at some points. 

Hey this is Davey Jones and he has a debt he wants to collect from Jack! Oh ok great, we've got another magical pirate for Jack and company to face that should be... And he's got a Kraken! But he's already an immortal pirate with a magical ship why does he need a gigantic monster? And he's got Will's dad with him! But....why? And in the next one we're gonna have a pirate council! You have literally never inferred that this existed or that anyone we know would be a part of it. And then they'll band together against the East India company, who controls Davey Jones now! Good God. And on and on it goes.

All they really needed to do for this movie was reuinite everyone, give them a new mystical challenge, and let the movie write itself from there. Over-explaining and over-complicating simply kills the magic.

The Tone is A Roller Coaster

At World's End features the hanging of a child. To put that into perspective this series began with an old man telling a young girl spooky stories, a young boy being saved and Jack Sparrow entering port on a sinking ship. That scene would never work in The Curse of the Black Pearl and that's kinda the problem.

Sure there's plenty of wacky action scenes involving spinning things, seriously try to remember how many action scenes in Dead Man's Chest are centered around things going in circular motion, but Dead Man's Chest ends with Jack Sparrow presumably dying after being betrayed by Elizabeth (in an act that makes Will think she likes Jack romantically). That's what the second movie left audiences with before having Barbossa show up for no apparent reason.

I'm not saying maintain the action/adventure vibe is eay

The Movies Abandons Plot Points Without A Second Thought

Remember how imposing and scary the Kraken was in Dead Man's Chest? Kinda freaky right? Well you better get your fill in the second film because the next time you see it it's dying on a beach. Seriously it's just gasping for breath on a beach dying because apparently it's been worked to death. There's not even a cut scene that explains it. The biggest threat in the Pirates universe goes down due to unsafe working conditions.

There's so many loose threads that never get true resolution. Such as:

• If Elizabeth is a pirate chief now, how does she simply get to retire on beach with her baby. Doesn't she need to pass off responsibilities?
• How exactly does the sentencing for the Flying Dutchman crew work? Does they serve and then truly die? Does anyone die for real in this series?
• How the hell did Davey Jones conjure the Black Pearl? Is the ship magical?
• Where does Elizabeth get money now that she's not a pirate and her government worker dad has died?
• Why does the second movie spend so much time building up this supposed sexual tension between Elizabeth and Jack, only to have her laugh it off in the third movie?
• Why does Calypso's arrival just mean the creation of whirlpool?

This could go on on and but you get the point.

As far as sequels go, these two certainly have their moments and some wonderful production values, but the magic is certainly lacking the second and third time around. Dead Man's Chest and At World's End may expand the Pirates universe, but the hodgepodge writing and bloated mythology are a weight that drags these movies to the depths.