Review by Mark Mallon

Let's start with an image of Keira Knightley in a jungle, in swashbuckler garb, her hot sweaty face centre screen. Yow.

I think Curse of the Black Pearl was restrained by comparison. This time around, they had the success of the last one to convince them to do two things differently: they opened plotlines for another installment, and they allowed their stunts and special effects to be more, shall we say, silly. Not Jennifer-Love-Hewitt's-actual-role-in-garfield silly, don't-fight-the-audacity-and-laugh silly. I believe this whole movie adopted the style and character originally played by Johnny Depp in the first one. This time, while wooing the audience with the special effects, they didn't wait for the quiet moments to make us laugh.

The story was easy enough to start, what with some loose ends from the first movie coming back to haunt. From there, they only had to make sense and keep up the pace. Still, about twenty minutes near the beginning of the movie was complete filler, there for no reason other than cater to absurdity, and it made the movie a little over two and a half hours long, but I don't think it has anything to apologize for, because it made me laugh, along with most of the people in both theatres I saw it in that day. As entertainment is what movies are for in the first place, since that section succeeded in that, there's really nothing to complain about. But if you look too closely, you can tell just how authentic their extras are.

One thing that I've noticed in smaller movies is that their makers tend to get ahead of themselves. They assume their popularity before they hit theatres. I noticed in hindsight that Curse of the Black Pearl did not. In this second installment, they dared to be a little more grand with their characters, poses, and plot points. Some of the poses Johnny Depp had were the type that most actors must dream about getting, and hope and pray that they're not ridiculed for attempting them, like Superman Returns' saviour symbolism scenes.Part of the reason the movie gets the leeway to do this is that they remembered that you don't have to be serious to be taken seriously. That may be the new road to success, these days.

The effects remained fantastic. The computer animation was better than anything I've seen come out of Lucasfilms. It's notable that while I could swear I saw a couple of painted white guys among the cannibals, at no point did I stop to think about how well they did on the Kraken, even as it climbed the side of the ship. Come to think of it, the man with the squid-like tentacles for a chin didn't even make me pause when the tentacles interacted with live actors. Really guys, well done.

As the nasty business of spoilers goes, I'll say two things. First, they brought back some characters from the first movie that I can't see anyone expecting, and second, I did wonder about the final fate of Bootstrap Bill. Think about it: at the end of the first movie, all the immortal pirates became mortal, and the last anyone knew of ol' Bootstrap, he was at the bottom of the ocean with a cannonball strapped to his feet, but he would have been immortal until the curse was broken.

If you're a fan of movies, make time for this one. If not, why did you read this far in the article?