I just caught it this afternoon. Here's a quick review:
When I walked into the theatre to see Pirates of the Carribean 2, I was really worried that it would be an awful film that would ruin the original. Well, I'm happy to report that my doubts have vanished completely. The movie once again follows Captain Jack Sparrow, William Turner, and Elizabeth Swan as they go on swashbuckling adventures across the seven seas. But all is not well. The commodore has lost his position. A new lord (I unfortunately have forgotten his name) has the warrant for the arrest of Will and Elizabeth, as well as the former commodore, after their aiding in the escape of Jack Sparrow. Jack himself is in search of a mysterious key that opens a chest of some sort. Nobody knows what he's after, and are quickly losing faith in him. Sparrow doesn't even seem to know where he's going as his unique compass has stopped working. Back at Port Royal, Will is allowed to set off on a search for Sparrow to obtain his compass; returning it to the lord will gain him and Elizabeth their freedom, allowing them to finally be married. But on the Pearl, Jack encounters yet another problem; Bootstrap Bill Turner appears in the bowels of the Pearl to give him a message from Davie Jones: his time is up. Jones will be coming to send the Black Pearl back to the depths of the ocean and it's captain along with it.
I was quite skeptical of the plot at first; it really just seemed like they were trying to look for ways to bring the three back together on a pirate ship. But by the end, I found that I was wrong. The story is full of mystery, deception, foul play, emotion, action, and much more. I found it remarkable how much happened in such a short time, yet somehow the pacing seemed perfect. I couldn't believe that it was less than 2 hours long. A lot of characters from the original appear again, and one of them was unbelievably surprising, and yet left a smile on my face. The dialogue is perfect, and brings back the wit and humor of the original. The acting was superb, mostly on the part of Johnny Depp's character, Jack. Once again Depp manages to create a unique and funny character that you can't help but love, despite all he does wrong. The rest of the characters were done right, but didn't really stick out to me as being exceptional.
I personally thought that there were two aspects of the film that really made it great: the soundtrack and the choreography. The soundtrack brings back a lot of songs from the original, which is good, and continues to use the excellent (and catchy) theme song. I found the most notable new songs to be those played on Davie Jone's organ. The music didn't seem to help with emotion too much, but it definitely complemented the action. The choreography was simply amazing. At one point in the film, there's an extremely entertaining battle between three people that goes from the beach, to some beautiful looking ruins, and then onto a paddewheel. The part of the wheel was VERY funny and entertaining, and I just couldn't wipe the smile off my face during the whole scene. Often times in movies, the action just gets to be a lot of the same thing, and I almost zone out the whole action scene. But this movie takes these normal scenes and makes them extraordinary.
Overall, I really, really enjoyed this movie, despite my doubts. Near the end, I was really wondering how they were going to wrap it up, and at one point I thought this was going to be the last movie for sure, but the very end just put a smile on my face and ended the mystery and revealing to me (because I didn't know it yet) that there was going to be a third. In fact, the ending was quite a cliffhanger, but still ended in a sense that left me satisfied and yet craving more. I highly recommend this movie to everyone, especially fans of the original.
