The Curse of the Black Pearl was a movie with a tight ending. The curse was broken, Barbossa is dead, Will and Elizabeth plan to marry, and Jack Sparrow sails off in the Black Pearl for more adventures. That last part alone could provide plenty of scope for sequels. The first of these was Dead Man's Chest, released in 2006.
Will and Elizabeth's wedding is disrupted by an untimely arrival from East India Company representative Lord Cutler Beckett, played by Tom Hollander. He has them both arrested for aiding Jack's escape, but offers Will a pardon if he recovers Jack's compass which doesn't point north (which has magical properties). Meanwhile, Jack Sparrow learns he is indebted to Davy Jones, a pirate Cthulu played by Bill Nighy who had given him the Black Pearl 13 years earlier. In return, Jack must serve on board Jones' ship, The Flying Dutchman, or he'll be hunted by the Kraken. Jack learns that he could defeat Jones by destroying his heart. Said heart is buried in the fabled "Dead Man's Chest", but he has to find a key first. To complicate things, Jack is also being hunted by James Norrington, who has resigned his commission in disgrace after losing his flagship in a hurricane while pursuing the Pearl.
This is where these films fall flat. The story is very convoluted and falls flat in places. Roughly the first half of the film is taken up by a rather lengthy diversion in which Will tries to save Jack from a tribe of cannibals. It's funny. but it does reach a Wile E. Coyote level of slapstick and doesn't really contribute to the later story. To be perfectly honest, they could have just cut Will and Elizabeth out of the story. Jack's debt to Davy Jones would have been enough, maybe with Norrington.
I also think they went a little over-the-top with the fantasy element, even if I do like the designs of Davy Jones and The Flying Dutchman's barnacle-encrusted crew. I guess they wanted to upstage themselves.
That said, it's still an enjoyable film. I quite like one segment where Jack is wandering through a tavern during a brawl and trying on people's hats to replace one he'd lost.
I also enjoyed a creative three-way sword-fight between Jack, Will, and Norrington, as their motivations for obtaining the Heart of Davy Jones come into conflict with one another: Jack wants to use leverage to call off the Kraken; Will wants to kill Davy Jones so he can free his long-lost father, who's serving The Flying Dutchman's crew; and Norrington wants to use the heart as a bargaining chip with Beckett, so he can regain his honour and status. They fight through a ruined church tower, and later on a dried-up water mill which breaks off and rolls away. It's creative, if a little cartoonish.
Curse of the Black Pearl was awesome. This one...kind of awesome.
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