LaughingPlace’s Movie Critic Kirby Holt has posted his review of Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
Fans of the first film (as well as the original ride) will have a ball picking up on all the minutiae that have been carried over into the new film, all the way from certain lines of dialogue (“Hello, poppet!”) to green apples. I particularly appreciated the generous use of actual pirate lore throughout, such as the dreaded “black spot” and the notorious port of Tortuga.Connoisseurs of revisionist westerns will also recognize a familiar theme briefly touched on here (one which will no doubt be further explored in the third film), that of the encroaching times driving the free-spirited pirates into oblivion, just as the cowboys would be in centuries to come.
That’s a good point I hadn’t read elsewhere. It picks up on a theme of the Pirates series that I think is driving part of its popularity. Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow is Freedom personified. If he’s not fighting for his freedom, he’s sailing for the horizon. Right now America, and much of the world, is having their freedoms constrained by the fight against terrorism. I think we’re all yearning for a little bit of that horizon, even if it means glorifying someone who today would be labeled a terrorist, not just a pirate.