Dissecting Pirates

Spoilers ahead.

So I finally saw it, and I generally liked it. Spectacle goes a long way with me; put the money on the screen, show me something new, and you're halfway there.

And some of these sequences really sung. Escape from cannibal island in a cage made of bones? Great. Swordfight in a waterwheel? Brilliant. Kraken, tearing apart a ship? Fierce.

I have to give it a solid B+.

Why not an A?

Simple.

They screwed up Captain Jack Sparrow.

In the first movie, he's fun. Sure, he's drunk a lot of the time, and you wouldn't trust him with your 3-year-old, but you wouldn't be afraid to turn your back on him.

But in Dead Man's Chest, he's different. It's not just because he's sober and scared most of the movie, though maybe that changed the way Johnny played him; to me, Johnny should always play Jack like he's very drunk.

The biggest problem is that suddenly, in the second movie, Jack Sparrow has become unlikable. A selfish jerk. A guy that you really don't want to spend time with.

And I get the point of this - in theory. It's all supposed to set up the last two beats, in which he redeems himself by coming back to the ship, and then Elizabeth cuffs him to the ship because she's still pissed at him. Storywise it works, for the story they are trying to tell.

(Though I still think the story is still too complex. This is a Disney pirate movie. If your average 9-year-old doesn't get a lot of this -- and he won't -- it's too complex).

But Jack Sparrow being a jerk really isn't any fun. We're never rooting for him to acheive his mission at all during the script; indeed, it's his own fault he's in trouble, since he made this deal with Davy Jones in the first place.

Instead, he's an antagonist for most of the piece. Which granted is an ambitious story choice, but -- seriously-- I don't think it's the movie that audiences really want.

In the first movie, Jack was selfish, and he had his own agenda... but he wasn't trying to hurt people in his life (such as taking action to doom people to an endless life on a ghost ship, as we get here) just to save himself.

If anything, the Jack in the second movie should be LESS selfish -- because c'mon, these are people who risked their lives (and indeed, have gotten into serious trouble) to save his. The character growth that Jack goes through at the very end of the second movie is character growth that would have more logically taken place by the end of the first.

In the first movie, we like him despite his flaws. In the second, we really don't like him much. And that's a major, major problem, because liking Jack, and having fun just watching him, are key elements to the success of this franchise.

We come into Dead Man's Chest already liking the characters. All they need is to have a cool adventure together. Not unconvincingly pitted against each other through an overcomplex tale.

So it's a credit to good acting and some great special effects that it gets the B+ from me, because I think the Jack Sparrow thing is really a big flaw here. Hopefully, in the third movie, his becoming a nice guy will stick.

Or hopefully the kraken at least swallowed a few barrels of rum, and we'll get drunk Jack back again.

Otherwise, I'm not clear why Davy Jones' heart could go into a jar of earth, and it wouldn't hurt it. Or why Davy Jones would bury his own heart someplace he can't go.

Or how Norrington, stranded on a deserted island with the heart and no boat, is able to make it all the way back to the evil British guy before the longboat reaches the voodoo chick....