By James Walling

For the Post

Film criticism is practically negated with mega-blockbusters like the latest installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. What does it matter if your humble critic lambastes such a film? Either you are going to see it or you aren't, and nothing in a movie review is likely to dissuade the curious from purchasing tickets. And yet, even in the face of this fact, Dead Man's Chest demands that lams be basted.

Disclaimer #1: This writer had a great time at Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). Therefore, it was all the more surprising and disconcerting to encounter this dull, turgidly slow and dissatisfying follow-up effort. Despite all the hubbub about the theme-park origins of its story line, the original Pirates had a seemingly foolproof formula in the combination of a swashbuckling Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, a fetching Keira Knightley, a dastardly Geoffrey Rush and wonderfully integrated special effects. Dead Man's Chest mismanages these dazzling elements, and the consequence is an unmitigated bore.

The performances in Dead Man's Chest are practically the inverse of the achievements of Pearl. Where Rush was intrinsically compelling as Captain Barbossa — alternately sinister and sympathetic — Bill Nighy is tiresome and somewhat laughable as the villain Davy Jones, hiding his lethargy behind a CGI mask of tentacles and crustacean appendages.

Knightley remains fetching, but wherein the first film her character was almost unselfconsciously sexy, she seems to have blossomed into a full-blown harlot with a demonstrable willingness to offer up her body to achieve her personal goals. Bloom, ever the neuter waif, lacks what little energy he demonstrated in Pearl and fades so convincingly into the background that he ought to be credited as Best Prop.

Disclaimer #2: I think Depp is one of the finest actors alive and I cannot recall a single film in which he appeared that was not rendered at least passably entertaining by his efforts. But I was crestfallen at Chest, as Depp saunters onto the screen devoid of the joyous abandon and spontaneity that delivered him an Oscar nomination for his work in Pearl. For the first time, Depp exhibits a tendency toward smugness and self-satisfaction. It would be unfair to say that his performance is entirely without merit — a scene rich with irony toward the end opposite Knightley springs to mind. But, to put it bluntly, one expects more from an actor of such caliber.

As with the acting, the special effects in Dead Man's Chest are as problematic and they were spectacular in Pearl. Creatures from the deep and dozens of damned souls with gory mutations take center stage in the sequel. Thinking back, one recalls the haunting scene in the original where Barbossa and his crew are revealed as undead by the moonlight. By comparison, the computer-generated mollusks and slime in Dead Man's Chest are uninteresting. Part of the problem is the sheer overuse of CGI; Verbinski and the film's producers spared no expense in this regard, but it's a distracting treasure of gimmicks.

Critical opinion has uniformly condemned the truncated arch of the story line in Dead Man's Chest. The plot seems to get lost amid the debris of Davy Jones' locker, only to reappear toward the end, building up to a teaser for another film. Without discussing particulars, I can only say that after two and a half hours enduring this bizarre cartoon, to discover that the equivalent of "To be continued..." is supposed to serve for an ending brought a term distinctly to mind: rip-off. But with American box office grosses setting all-time records, I can only demure and note that, as the old saying goes, there's one born every minute.