I will be the first to admit that when Disney announced its intention to bring a new film to the big screen based on a rather lame theme park ride, I didn’t think much of the idea.  Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl proved me very wrong.  The film turned out to be a quirky, exciting, and gleefully goofy epic-scale adventure that entertained.  A king’s ransom of over $300 million earned at the domestic box office and a healthy sense of avarice that would make a pirate blush ensured that a new franchise had been born.  Three years after the first installment, we have the first of two sequels that were shot back to back.  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was released in 2006 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End is due in May of 2007.

Dead Man's Chest continues the saga smoothly; this is particularly admirable considering that the first film was not written to flow naturally into a sequel.  As the film opens, it’s Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann’s (Keira Knightley) wedding day; alas, the ceremony never takes place.  Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) arrives from England with warrants for the couple’s arrest.  They stand accused of aiding and abetting the escape of pirate captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), a crime punishable by hanging.  Even Governor Weatherby Swann (Jonathan Pryce) can’t leverage his considerable influence to spring his daughter or future son-in-law.  But it soon becomes clear that Beckett is willing to strike a bargain with Will.  In exchange for Jack’s personal compass, Beckett is willing to set the couple free.  The bait to be offered Sparrow is the King’s pardon.  Elizabeth will remain imprisoned while Will seeks out Jack to strike the bargain and recover the compass.

What neither Will nor Beckett know is that the compass is far more precious than either realize; it’s the means of Jack’s salvation.  Jack owes Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) a debt, his soul, and that debt is coming due.  Jack hopes the compass will lead him to the means of freeing himself from that curse, the contents of dead man’s chest.  That chest becomes the film’s Macguffin.  The ruined ex-commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport) appears, desperate to work his way back into his majesty’s good graces; he discovers that the chest will provide precisely the bargaining chip he needs to restore his career.  Elizabeth manages to escape captivity and pursues Will.  Will pursues Jack.  Jack pursues the chest.  And both Norrington and Davy Jones pursue Jack.  Along the way there is an encounter with cannibals and Davy Jones’ agent of death, a Kracken, a vast beast that can crush any ship in its tentacled grip.

As Lucas did with The Empire Strikes Back, this middle episode of Pirates of the Caribbean ends abruptly and solemnly but with a bit of an unexpected surprise.  It certainly leaves the viewer wanting more.  And with less than six months between this DVD release and the theatrical release of the third chapter - it will come to theaters on the thirtieth anniversary of the original Star Wars - we won’t have long to wait. 

Depp has recaptured the lecherous heterosexuality of his character yet still manages to convey an odd sexual ambiguity.  He mumbles, swishes about, and has great fun with his character without condescending.  He may be the first and only metrosexual pirate, except with questionable hygiene (hmmm, that doesn’t seem right).  Keira Knightley is very strong.  Having come off the action flick Domino, she now seems quite taken with more active characters that require stunts, fights, and risks.  Orlando Bloom seems stronger as well, perhaps because his character was more fully formed by the experiences of the first film.  And I must single out director Gore Verbinski for wonderful images and effectively reigning over an extremely challenging production.  The two hours and thirty minutes flew by, fully captivating my attention. Don’t forget to watch for a coda after the closing credits; I wonder how many moviegoers never saw it.  Now we have the luxury of the fast scan button on our remote controls.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

As good as this film may be, I can’t say the same about the transfer; I suspect its length forced the compressionist to make compromises.  The film is a tad soft with only modest finely grained textures.  Small object detail is reasonable, but not outstanding.  Edge halos are visible on high contrast transitions; they are quite wide, but of low amplitude.  They’ll become clear in daylight scenes, but become invisible during the many dark scenes at night or below deck or in caves.  Color rendition is quite good, with natural skin tones that suggest Caribbean tans.  The turquoise blue of the Caribbean and the lush greens of tropical jungle are quite convincing.  The video dynamic range is excellent.  Blacks merge into the windowbox bars.  I saw no black crush or white crush.  Nor did I notice any mosquito noise or macroblocking, a particularly difficult feat with the dynamic water effects and simulated fog.  This is a pretty good transfer, but I must admit that high definition discs are spoiling me.  I’m very much looking forward to this film being released on Blu-ray Disc.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is exceptionally aggressive.  The surround channels seem to be constantly active with environmental noises like background jungle sounds and discrete sounds and pans.  Enable EX decoding to be completely enveloped.  The bottom end is also quite aggressive, with sphincter stimulating bass, for example, the beating of a vast heart.  Hans Zimmer has written a highly bombastic orchestral score that pounds away at the viewer but, thanks to the sound designer, never overwhelms the dialog or the sound effects.  The spoken work remains crystal clear throughout.  My only complaint is that the film seems to have a restricted dynamic range.  Sounds seem to be loud and very loud.  There is nothing subtle about this mix.

The alternate languages are in French and Spanish, both presented in Dolby Digital 5.1.  Optional subtitles are in English SDH, French, and Spanish.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Disc one of this two-disc set opens with the usual collection of trailers and promos: Peter Pan on DVD (0:49); four-disc special edition of The Chronicles of Narnia (0:32); Meet the Robinsons, set to music from Sky Captain and the World of Tommorow and announced as a Disney digital 3-D presentation; the next Pixar production, Ratatouille; and, a promo for Disney Movie Rewards.  The last three have an aggregate runtime of 3:28.  And then there’s a promo for Disney Blu-ray Disc (0:53); the most interesting part of that is the list of titles at the end.  Something to look forward to.  Sneak Peeks includes all of the above plus Invincible (2:32), The Guardian (2:30), and a promo for Disney theme parks (0:32), so skip the lot and get to the feature film.

The major supplement on disc one is a feature-length commentary by screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio.  Considering how irreverent I discovered them to be in the video supplements on disc two, I found their commentary to be surprisingly dull.  There are far too few anecdotes and far too much discussion about the nature of the plot and the characters.  Every once in a while, they’ll offer a line that they miss in the theatrical cut, and they do discuss the evolution of the plot structure and the logic of the artistic decisions.  But I found the commentary a bit disappointing.  Fortunately, the video supplements more than make up for the lack of hard information within their comments.

Bloopers of the Caribbean (3:51) is pleasant, giggle inducing, and simply too short.  It’s the usual collection of performers cracking each other up or blowing their lines.  Let’s move on to disc two and the generous collection of extras found there.

The Charting the Return (25:40) featurette is a pre-production diary that takes us from conception, to screenwriting, to storyboarding, to location scouting, to performer training, planning, stunt preparation, and so much more.  We observe the casting of the secondary players.  Of particular interest is the location scouting in the Caribbean; very remote areas were explored by helicopter, hiking, repelling, swimming . . . one cannot fault director Gore Verbinski’s enthusiasm.  I was quite surprised to learn that a modern, diesel powered ship was bought and the Black Pearl built around and on it to achieve a practical pirate ship.  Lest you think that this is all sweetness and light EPK fluff, the featurette seems quite candid about both the very late script and budgetary problems that very nearly shut the dual film production down before it even started principal photography.  The tension between the director and his writers is palpable.  The featurette ends on the first day of 200-day shooting schedule that Verbinski must have experienced as a pressure cooker.

According to Plan is a generous production documentary (1:02:59).  This is a wonderful, lighthearted, revealing record of a remarkably grueling shoot.  I was simply amazed at the logistical nightmares of locations in highly remote areas that didn’t have the infrastructure to support an invading army of four hundred people and their tons of equipment transported on a six hundred foot long freighter packed with no room to spare.  The shoot was a confusing blend of great beauty and extreme physical challenges.  The production smacked of bizarre ingenuity.  Of particular interest is the behind-the-scenes look at how the sword fight on and in the wheel was accomplished.  Kudos to the principal actors and their strong stomachs.  I was also impressed with the clever cable mechanism used to as a surrogate for a gimbal system as directed motion was induced on the ships brought into a vast water tank constructed for the films.  The biggest surprise was the filmmakers’ decision to schedule the Caribbean location shoot during the hurricane season, and as you know, there were some very powerful storms during the film’s production year.  We watch as the whole production is shut down as Wilma takes aim at the Bahamas.  George Lucas may have experienced two destructive Tunisian sandstorms during his Star Wars shoots, but they pale in comparison to the potential destructive power of a severe hurricane.  The documentary ends on the last day of location shooting with executive producer Eric McLeod entertaining the cast and crew with some fascinating statistics.

Captain Jack: From Head to Toe is a series of shorts that highlight various aspects of the character.  The choices are presented on a graphic menu screen, but let’s cut to the chase and select the handy Play All option.  The collection will then run 27:34.  Costume elements and makeup elements dominate, but we do hear from Depp about his inspirations for Captain Sparrow, and props are discussed as well.  What I didn’t realize is how involved Depp was in creating his character’s persona though costume, makeup, and accessories.  I would have thought that the director was making those decisions.

Mastering the Blade is actually three short featurettes that demonstrate the stunts performed by and training given to three of the principal actors: Orlando Bloom (5:37); Keira Knightly (5:07); and, Jack Davenport (5:17).  We see them rehearse, guided by the stunt coordinator and stunt people, and watch as they shoot some of their action scenes.  Each short is punctuated by charming comments from the actors.

The Meet Davy Jones: Anatomy of a Legend (12:33) featurette immediately reveals that Bill Nighy’s on-set performance was in a motion capture suit and then transformed into the CGI creature of Davy Jones.  This is the next step in digital special effects technology and it should come as no surprise that Industrial Light and Magic is responsible.  Having watched the supplements for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you’re familiar with the technique of placing actors in special jumpsuits with retro-reflectors at key points on their bodies; then, they are put on a motion capture stage to be digitized with multiple cameras.  The resulting computer generated stick figures become the genesis for the construction of detailed CGI creatures that are digitally composited into the film.  ILM decided to capture facial movements and body movements with reflecting dots of makeup and special jumpsuits on set, while the players interacting with one another.  This created more natural, more organic performances, but was an imposing technical challenge.  For this writer, someone with a great interest in the technology of modern film techniques, this was the most interesting featurette on the disc.

I expected that the Creating the Kraken (9:58) featurette would be more of the same CGI exposition.  I was wrong.  Of particular interest is how they destroyed the first ship attacked by the Kraken.  It was far more practical than I expected.  And the sequence of sliming Depp with Kraken spit is a real chuckle.

Dead Men Tell New Tales: Re-Imagineering the Attraction (13:01) is a featurette that one might think is an explanation of how a rather mild, child-oriented, animatronic theme park ride was transformed into a droll action flick presented with style and wit.  Nope.  Here we discover how Disney’s imaginative engineers - the imagineers - spruced up ancient attractions with new elements and new features for the 50th anniversary of Disneyland.  This turns out to be a circular process of a ride inspiring a movie inspiring a ride, as the attraction designers incorporate elements of the film into the ride.  Regardless, the Disneyland attraction is still very much rated G.  Highlights are the sections that shows how an animatronic figure is designed and fabricated, and both Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush’s contributions, recreating their roles for the ride.

Fly on the Set: The Bone Cage (3:48) is a quick, narration-free, behind the scenes short that shows us one very special sequence being shot: the swinging bone cage.  Hoisted by a large crane and reeled in by a winch, the actor-filled cage is released repeatedly to swing in front a huge outdoor blue-screen.  It looks like much more fun than the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the Disney parks.  I think the imaginers might want to think about that.

Jerry Bruckheimer: A Producer's Photo Diary (4:42) is a collection of photographs panned and zoomed and set to music from the score.  They are blended with a Bruckheimer interview and scenes of his taking his photos.  Bruckheimer also narrates many of his stills with an EPK level of comments about the plot and characters and players.

The last supplement on this second disc is the Pirates on Main Street: The Dead Man's Chest Premiere (3:59).  No surprises here, simply a two thousand foot long red carpet at Disneyland with thousands of frantic fans clamoring for a photo or an autograph of the film’s principals.

The 150-minute film is organized into twenty-eight chapters.

Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?

None are included on this disc.

Easter Eggs

On disc two at the top of the first menu screen you’ll find a leaf that can be highlighted.  When you select it, you’ll learn about some of the unsung heroes of any film production, the caterers (2:08).  If Napoleon had been alive today, he’d amend his famous observation to say that armies and film companies travel on their stomachs.  At the bottom of that same screen, there is a hidden clump of grass.  Select it to be treated to Christopher and Michael Symonds, twins playing co-joined pirate brothers aboard the Flying Dutchman, in their motion capture suit (1:05).

There is a similar leaf and clump of grass on that disc’s second menu screen.  The leaf reveals another critical behind-the-scenes contributor, A.J. Leonardi, Jr., a stand-by painter (1:08).  The clump of grass takes you to an interview with Peter Nichols, the coconut man.  He climbs coconut palms and cuts down the heavy coconuts with a machete to prevent injuries from falling orbs (1:37). 

Final Thoughts

I must mention that Buena Vista Home Entertainment has issued a statement to reviewers indicating that Web rumors of a super-duper multi-disc edition that exceeds the content found in this two-disc edition are totally false.  I think it’s reasonable to except a Blu-ray Disc edition, but don’t hesitate to pick up this DVD because of a false rumor of better to come. 

Everyone involved in this film production has ramped up the action, the humor, the special effects, and, for the characters, the stakes.  As painful and challenging the production might have been, the decision to continue the series paid off handsomely.  Dead Man’s Chest earned $423 million in the domestic box office alone.  A good transfer, a highly aggressive audio track, and some superb supplements make this disc set highly recommended.

Buena Vista Home Entertainment / 2006 / 150 Minutes / PG-13


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