Extrapolating on 'Dead Man's Chest'

I just read a review from Sci-Fi Weekly that summarizes how I felt about this second installment of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest:

...[A]s in the first film, Depp's mincing Jack Sparrow is the chief attraction in this sequel film, but he is overshadowed by a plot that is packed with so many twists and turns it makes a viewer seasick. This is not helped by the fact that the movie is the second installment in a proposed trilogy of films and necessarily requires a lot of setup for payoffs that won't come until the last movie. Who is Lord Beckett? What does the East India Trading Company need with Jack Sparrow's compass? Why is Jack Sparrow suddenly the chief of cannibals? What's the deal with that big jar of dirt?

Dead Man's Chest also suffers from the inclination of sequels to take what worked in the original movie and just add more of it. There are more visual effects, more sword fighting, more pirates, more ships, more cannibals, more villains. Too much more. Like Depp, the otherwise charming Knightley and Bloom are overwhelmed by the spectacle and byzantine story.

In particular, a sequence in which Depp must elude cannibals simply goes on and on and on far longer than it should, with very little bearing on the actual story arc. It features a few of the film's key action sequences, including a three-way sword fight on a rolling mill wheel (!), which, one suspects, is the reason the sequence was allowed to run as long as it does.

The film also contains its stabs at humor. But, again, where the first movie's humor came naturally, the jokes and pratfalls in the sequel feel forced. That's especially true of the recurring and painfully unfunny Laurel-and-Hardy routine between Pintel (Lee Arenberg) and Ragetti (Mackenzie Crook), whose wooden-eye jokes were exhausted in the first movie. ...

The reviewer continues on about how Davey Jones' crew were over-the-top and caroon-like. I disagree with him. The makeup/effects used were actually quite cool, and well suited for the type of crew Davey Jones should and would employ. I also dug the Kraken. Although I am curious where within Davey Jones' ship it's actually kept.

And all action sequences and visual effects alone were ver-ver entertaining.

Update: Just found out that the Kraken doesn't live within Davey Jones' boat. Buggah! Ok.. ok.. so perhaps I was the only one who thought so. Cut me some slack.. I was up way past my bedtime and feeling hazy.