I had heard the vague talk that Dead Man's Chest had certain similarities with another middle-of-trilogy adventure movie (The Empire Strikes Back), and I can certainly see the parallels:
- blonde hero learns more about and confronts his presumed-dead father
- blond and brunette heroes are now apparently in competition for The Girl
- heroes travel to an odd location where one of the very few black featured characters helps them out
- brunette hero is trying desperately to avoid a debt he owes to a large slimy associate
- brunette hero is left in rather an unpleasant position at movie's end
- movie does not so much end as stop
This is not a movie to think deeply about: it's a hell of a lot of fun, laugh-out-loud funny in a number of places, and it did make nearly two and a half hours pass very quickly. I saw the first one at home a week after watching Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World, both of which made it suffer a bit. I saw Dead Man's Chest on a big screen in a theatre with nice comfy chairs and good sound, as God and Gore Verbinski intended.
Other random thoughts:
- The Wife actually recognized Bill Nighy under his makeup, for which she deserves some kind of prize
- Elizabeth's father has surprisingly little power for a British Governor in the high days of imperialism; the redcoats should all take his orders, not those of some jumped-up businessman
- the two squabbling pirates are worth the price of admission all by themselves ("the dichotomy of good and evil?")
- And it sure rains a lot in this movie...
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