Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

The second time out for Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow, the bloated Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, has some fatal flaws. The biggest problem would be Orlando Bloom, an actor capable of bringing movies to a complete halt (and not for good reasons) when he appears on screen. The other problem is the film’s nearly 2-and-a-half-hour running time. There might be enough here for a decent hour and a half, but its present cut is outrageous. Director Gore Verbinski has made a good-looking movie, a dark sequel that often feels like a bona fide horror film. While Depp remains major fun as Sparrow, Bloom is equally boring as Will Turner. He’s one of the worst actors out there right now (his work in Elizabethtown and Kingdom of Heaven being proof of that). When Bloom’s sharing the screen with a freewheeling performance like Depp’s, he looks totally amateur.