Dead Man's Chest: The Art of Overselling

Anyone who saw Pirates of the Carribean no doubt has been looking forward to the sequel - Dead Man's Chest. Especially me. I'm a big fan of Johnny Depp, I reckon he's the coolest cat in Hollywood and he's always had a knack of making characters his own, none more so than Captain Jack Sparrow:

Story goes, when the exec's at Disney first saw the rushes of Depp's portrayal, they were scared shitless. Why isn't he being all cool and macho? What is up with the 'Keef' Richards impression. Depp knew what he was doing and it paid off as he stole the show.

That's the problem with Pirates 2. The execs no doubt thought 'hey, Depp sells! Let's let him run the show!' Sounds like a good idea, right?

Wrong.

The reason why Depp's Jack Sparrow worked so wonderfully and stole the show was because he was, effectively, the Han Solo of the movie. But Han Solo never lead Star Wars. The story was always about Luke, the true 'hero' in a very mythical sense.

But it looks like the exec's are having none of it. They've stuck Depp front and center, Kiera Knightley a close second and Orlando seems to be there purely for continuity (poor fucker). The couple are given about less than five minutes to establish their story and then it's straight to Jack. Haha! Look at Jack! He's funny! Haha...! Ha... ha... hmmm... is this going anywhere?

The thing is, if it was written well this wouldn't be so bad. But Depp's story arc is the least interesting to follow. In part one his story arc was not JUST about treasure: he wanted his ship back from those that took it from him and he wanted revenge, hence even though he may not be a noble man there was something morally noble about his actions. Now? Now he's just plain selfish. Sure, they try to give him some sense of nobility at the end but it's too little too late.

Actually, you know what this movie reminds me off? The Matrix sequel. You're waiting and waiting for it, you loved the first one so much, you want to feel the same as the first one, then you go in and it looks like the filmmakers went "ok, what did the audience like last time? Let's stick more of that in!" So the Matrix had MORE flo-mo action sequences and kung-fu, MORE philosophising and... it sucked. A bunch of cool scenes in an uneven movie.

Pirates 2 is the same: MORE swashbuckling, MORE Jack Sparrow, MORE supernatural underwater shenanigans (and like the Matrix, just when things get interesting and a cool twist is revealed, the movie fucking ends, ensuring you'll be first in line at part three no matter how much you were dissapointed by part two).

Sure, there are incredible set pieces, and the FX are stunning, but FX with no story equals no goddamn point! And bringing back all the characters you loved from the first one is one thing, but bringing them back via the elusive ghost in the Hollywood scriptwriting machine is just annoying.

There's also a 'development' in Kiera's character between her and Johnny Depp which further shows who they're pushing the spotlight on: the two more bankable stars. Yes, Orlando hasn't had much stardom post-LOTR, but he's still the Luke Skywalker of the story. Let him lead it, godammit!

Sigh... I know I'm going to watch part three, and odds are, it'll probably redeem part two, just like Matrix 3 did.

I just hope they don't make Captain Jack Sparrow Jesus.