Dead Man's Chest.

Pirates Of the Caribbean: Dead man’s Chest opened last week, and since at that point I was sitting at home twiddling my thumbs I was duty-bound to catch a preview.

Being me, there may be SPOILERS - look below the fold if that doesn’t bother you.

I loved the first Pirates film, I really did. When it was showing in the cinema I went to see it more times than I’ll readily admit. Let’s just say that was a number greater than or equal to five.

Which is why this second helping in the franchise is so very, very disappointing. It’s two and a half hours long, and it doesn’t become interesting until maybe half an hour before the end. In fact, the only bit that made me go, “Class!” comes right at the very end as Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa comes down some stairs with an undead monkey on his shoulder. Up until that point something was lacking…

Where Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow was brilliant and entertaining in the first film, here he grates. Bill Nighy is superb as Davy Jones, but I can’t help thinking he would have been a little more menacing if we could see at least some of his face. The CGI is fantastic on his character, but maybe detracts a little. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley don’t do much but look earnest and pretty/pretty and earnest/delete as applicable. Jack Davenport doesn’t really need to be there at all, does he? His character is pretty rubbish anyway.

Anything good about it? It looks great. And I suppose the next one (what with this one leaving the story literally only half-told) has the potential to be good again - Barbossa’s back!

The first Pirates movie wasn’t what you’d call innovative, but it brought together all the ingredients of a good blockbuster in expert fashion until they became something brilliant. This one is lacking some sort of spark, so it can’t hide the fact that it’s just another inoffensive big-budget summer movie with nothing to remember it by.

Oh well…