Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Friday, September 7 - Old Mill Park in Mill Valley

Showtime: 8:00 PM

Sponsored by

2006 PG-13

Gore Verbinski's more, more, more sequel to the surprise hit of summer 2003 picks up not long after the first film ended, though it's been long enough for fresh-faced Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), spunky daughter of Port Royal governor Weatherby Swann (Jonathan Pryce), and blacksmith-turned-adventurer Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) to progress from swooningly romantic first kiss to wedding day. Unfortunately, the happy occasion is disrupted by the arrival of nefarious Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), representative of the rapacious British East India Trading Company, to arrest both bride- and groom-to-be on charges of abetting a scurvy buccaneer by the name of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Weaselly Beckett is a man of the future, where businessmen rule the high seas and inspire more fear in the hearts of the disenfranchised masses than mere pirates ever could, and his five-year plan requires Will to acquire Sparrow's fabled compass on his behalf. What better motivation than to assure Will that should he fail, both he and Elizabeth will hang? Sparrow, meanwhile, has troubles of his own: Having traded his soul to undead pirate Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), captain of the ghostly "Flying Dutchman," in return for 10 years of commanding the pirate vessel "Black Pearl," Sparrow's debt has come due. True to his nature, he's looking for a way out, and a conjure woman (Naomie Harris) advises that he must get his hands on Jones' heart, which is locked in a hidden chest.

The rest of Jones is fast becoming one with the briny deep, hands mutated into lobster claws, face dissolving into a mass of squirming tentacles that might, at a misty distance, be taken for a luxurious white beard. And meanwhile, Elizabeth has disguised herself as a beardless lad, the better to go to sea in search of her beloved; disgraced Commodore James Norrington (Jack Davenport), the fiance Elizabeth jilted for Will, has signed on to the "Black Pearl"; and Will's long-lost dad, Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), is languishing aboard the hellish "Dutchman," whose crewmen are slowly mutating into rotting half-men/half-sea-creatures like their captain. But wait, there's more: cannibals, coffins, saucy ladies with a slap for Sparrow, swords, pole-vaulting, graveyard hijinks, cages made of bones, a runaway mill wheel and — almost forgot! — the kraken, demoted from legendary sea monster to Davy Jones' pet attack squid. You can't beat on DEAD MAN'S CHEST on value-for-money terms, but it's like an all-you-can-eat buffet — everything's tasty, the surfeit is sickening. --Maitland McDonagh