Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

The second film of the series. A debt has not been paid. Jack Sparrow got his ship back through an agreement, and the holder of the debt is coming. Davy Jones runs a ship beneath the sea. His crew has turned into sea creatures over the years and he carries the face of an octopus. At the same time Will and Elizabeth are arrested. A company representative wants Jack's compass in exchange for releasing them. From there the film becomes three separate chases. An island with a tribe, a chest, a key, and a forest where everyone wants the same thing. There is a heart in the chest, and whoever holds it commands Davy Jones. What the narrative is interested in is not treasure but debt: everyone in the film has made a bargain and the term is running out; the narrative sets that up again and again. The three-way sword fight inside a water wheel is the best constructed section. Davy Jones is an entirely digital character produced from an actor's facial movement; the performance was recorded directly on set, and a facial transfer at that scale was new at the time. The film won an Academy Award for visual effects. It was made together with the third film in a single shooting period. The film cuts off in the middle and continues in the next one. Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy and Stellan Skarsgård are in the cast. Gore Verbinski directed. Who it is for: anyone who liked the first film and wants a larger scale. Who it is not for: anyone expecting closure; the narrative does not end and the plot is far more tangled than the first.