Publication Date: 08-03-2026

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) review

Dir. Gore Verbinski

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★½

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a rapturous convergence of grandscale storytelling, roaring spectacle, strong performances from actors of different generations, throwback costumes, and swashbuckling entertainment. It was anchored by Gore Verbinski’s command on the material and the cast. Everything was so on-point like a cactus, you could forget the entire thing was inspired by the long-running Disneyland attraction.

Disney executives had to feel like pillaging pirates who just struck gold when they saw the box office gold rush pour in. The Curse of the Black Pearl sailed the seas and captured over $600 million in treasure. A sequel was as certain as a bottle of rum being within 10 feet of the captain of any pirate ship. Enter Dead Man’s Chest, a marginally satisfying follow-up that triples down on spectacle. That’s fine to a point. It’s great to look at, and a couple of its set-pieces exceed some in the original in scale and execution. But gone is the multilayered story that drew me into The Curse of the Black Pearl isn’t present here, and it makes for a movie where there’s a lot happening and you find yourself questioning how we got from point-A to point-B.

Dead Man’s Chest opens just as Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) are about to wed only for them both to be arrested for abetting the escape of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Lord Cutter Beckett (Tom Hollander) would rather broker a deal than see both souls put to death, so he offers them a wager: find Captain Jack and persuade him to give up his magic compass and they will be free again.

That’s enough plot to set into motion a windy marathon of mayhem, beginning with Will and Jack being held in captivity by cannibals, believing Jack to be their God, and then the charismatic captain being reunited with his beautiful Black Pearl ship. Also enter Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), a ghastly looking half-human/half-squid hybrid who controls the Kraken, a vicious, mythical sea monster. Not much concerned by Will and Elizabeth’s attempts to retrieve his compass, Jack has his sights set on a key that opens a mysterious treasure chest. Davy Jones also wants the key, and by this point, we now have two MacGuffins in a movie in search of a purpose, regardless of how much fun it occasionally is. Oh, and Elizabeth also starts to harbor feelings for Jack, complicating her imminent marriage to Will.

There’s so much running around in Dead Man’s Chest that it’s easy to forget character motivations and goals outside of their pursuit for one magical item or another. Where The Curse of the Black Pearl dazzled with its natural blend of plot and action, Verbinski and company go idiosyncratic with this sequel, stitching otherwise staccato action set-pieces together without much cohesion.

At least it looks great. The sequence in which hundreds of cannibals chase Captain Jack on an island beach is one of the single-best in the movie. Later, a trek to Tortuga proves perilous, and Verbinski again knows how to capture everything from the Black Pearl itself to three-way swordfights with a respect for clarity (aided of course by editors Craig Wood and Stephen Rivkin). The only thing standing in the way of Dead Man’s Chest is its pacing. It’s already a waterlogged 155 minutes, and that quest proves very lengthy when the end goals keep shifting and new doohickeys are introduced on a whim.

My review of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
My review of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
My review of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
My review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgård, Bill Nighy, Jack Davenport, Kevin R. McNally, and Jonathan Pryce. Directed by: Gore Verbinski.