Disneyland: The Movie - POTC: DEAD MAN'S CHEST

In recognition of Walt Disney Pictures' new film, TOMORROWLAND, more or less "based" on the futuristic themed land in Disney theme parks, I'm taking a look back at the films based on or inspired by Disneyland attractions.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST
Genre: Action-Adventure, Fantasy
Released 7 July 2006
Directed by Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport, Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Lee Arenberg, Mackenzie Crook, Kevin R. McNally, David Bailie, Stellan Skarsgard, Tom Hollander, Naomie Harris, Martin Klebba, David Schofield
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of adventure violence, including frightening images.
151 minutes

A latecomer to the Hollywood franchise game, The Walt Disney Company was all too eager to stay in it following the success of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, a movie that became the highest-grossing live action production Disney had ever released.  The studio quickly greenlit two sequels to be shot back-to-back in a manner similar to the simultaneous three-film shoot of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, an economical option that allowed more exclusive use of the cast and crew and maximized location efficiency.  After the studio had been so reluctant to greenlight the first film's budget of $140 million, the combined budget approved for the two POTC sequels was a massive $450 million, $225 million a piece, making the films a couple of the most expensive ever produced even before going over-budget, which they certainly did.  However, if THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL had been a surprise smash hit, then it's follow-up, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST, proved that the series was a full-blown phenomenon.  Despite divisive response from critics, DEAD MAN'S CHEST became the third movie to ever gross over $1 billion worldwide, and was the 6th highest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office as of 2006.

But the POTC sequels are weird.  Not just in their visuals and humor, which they assuredly are, but in the very way they respond to the original.  Rather than going with stand alone adventures like the Indiana Jones and James Bond series, screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio made the strange decision to retroactively turn the series into a cohesive trilogy saga.  While not necessarily a good thing, it doesn't necessarily turn out to be a bad thing; it just works out to be a weird thing.
DEAD MAN'S CHEST returns to the story of the blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and aristocratic Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) on the day of that would be their wedding if not for arrest charges brought against them by the King's agent and chairman of the East India Trading Company, Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), for freeing the known pirate Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp).  Beckett makes a deal with Will to obtain Jack Sparrow's enchanted compass, initially thought to point only to Isla de Muerta, but in fact which points at what the person holding desires most, and which Beckett hopes to use to find the "Dead Man's Chest" and control the seas.  It turns out when Will finds him however, that Jack, returned to his captaincy on the Black Pearl, is already on the hunt for the Dead Man's Chest, which legend says contains the still-beating heart of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), the devil of the seas who offers dying sailors a chance to postpone their final judgement by serving 100 years years on his mystical ship, The Flying Dutchman.  Jack made a deal with Jones years earlier to serve on the Dutchman in exchange for Jones raising the sunken Black Pearl, and the time to pay has come, so Jack's only hope is to find the Dead Man's Chest, the leverage to stave off Jones' claim.  When Will discovers that his father, "Bootstrap" Bill Turner (Stellan Skargard) is cursed to eternal servitude on The Flying Dutchman, he wants the chest for himself in order to free his father, and the now-disgraced James Norrington (Jack Davenport) hopes to retrieve the chest for Lord Beckett and reclaim his status, and a mad dash for the Dead Man's Chest begins.

Of the trilogy of POTC films (excluding the separate fourth film), DEAD MAN'S CHEST is the weakest, playing the part of "dark sequel" in what really makes most sense as a lighthearted swashbuckling adventure series.  It's bloated, occasionally gross, and even has a bit of a mean streak.  But for those already inclined toward big swashbuckling action and fantasy, like myself, it's still a lot of fun.  Who can turn down a mega-sized squid (Kraken) ripping apart sailing ships?  Despite the strange illusions of myth and weightiness, DEAD MAN'S CHEST thrives on its pulpier moments.
Returning director Gore Verbinski ups the intensity quotient significantly, with some excellent horror/creature action in the form of not one, but two major Kraken attacks.  Huge tentacles swarm about the decks of ships and grabbing sailors and dragging them away to gruesome fates, while sailors slash, hack and shoot at the appendages in futility, and in one spectacular moment of destruction, totally destroys a ship.  The destruction was filmed practically, with massive weights dropped on top of an actual ship, splitting it in half at the middle, with the weights then replaced with digital tentacles.

Nearly a decade later, the digital effects still hold up magnificently, and the physical improbability notwithstanding, it's understandable that some critics at the time mistakenly believed Davy Jones was created with practical makeup.  The rendering of the tentacle-bearded demon has an improbably tactile appearance, complimented by Nighy's colorful performance, acted out on location with the rest of the actors with revolutionary motion-capture technology, as opposed to the skeleton pirates in the first film, which had to be filmed separately from the non-CGI characters.
Davy Jones hasn't received the recognition he deserves as a screen villain, a masterpiece of creature design inspired by the literature of H.P. Lovecraft, with an array of tentacles falling from his face in the semblance of a large beard, and which he uses to play a huge organ in fits of rage.  One hand has been replaced by a great, big crustacean pincer, the opposite leg is that of an over-sized crab, resembling a peg leg, and his tricorn hat opens at the front like devil horns, himself being the "Devil of the Seas".  He's a tragic and angry character, once a man who fell in love with the goddess of the sea and agreed to ferry the souls of those who died at sea into the afterlife and one day every ten years he could return to land to be with the woman he loved.  When she did not show, he carved out his heart and locked it away in chest, abandoning his duties while he and his crew slowly transformed into sea monsters.  Unable to adopt a Dutch accent befitting the captain of The Flying Dutchman, English actor Bill Nighy opted for an authoritative Scottish tone, and plays the character with shifty and rhythmic mannerisms.

DEAD MAN'S CHEST is a somewhat nastier film than others in the series, where many bystanders meet gruesome fates and the heroes are all more than a little amoral.  A bird plucks a man's eyeball from its socket, a man's throat is slashed and his body thrown overboard, and Norrington, the noblest character from the first film, returns as a disgraced alcoholic.  Everyone is a little darker this time around, including Jack, whose antics have been up-sized live action Looney Tunes proportions (including a scene in which Jack, tied to a post impaled with assorted squash and melons like a giant shish kabob, falls into a ravine and through multiple rope bridges), but displays notably muddier ethics in order to evade Jones' wrath.  Then there's the issues of lust between Jack and Elizabeth, that come to a pretty good conclusion as Elizabeth lays a super aggressive kiss on Jack to distract him while she's double-crossing, but doesn't make a great deal of sense within the context of the larger story.  The narrative is a bit clunky, but designs, performances and direction are all working smartly in spite of that.
DEAD MAN'S CHEST is an obvious example of a "dark sequel", made in the mold of the king daddy of dark sequels, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  Jack's past catches up with him, and the film wraps up on a down note, with Jack taken down to Davy Jones' Locker, Cutler Beckett in possession of the Heart of Davy Jones, and our heroes preparing to go in for another round.  In a doozy of a cliffhanger (which Elliot and Rossio believed was good relief from the overwhelming darkness of the final scenes, but may have just teased audiences a little too hard), Jack Sparrow's old nemesis, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), descends down the stairs of Tia Dalma's cabin, resurrected and ready to lead Will, Elizabeth and Jack's crew on a voyage to the end of the world.

Less An Adaptation of a Theme Park Ride Than the First, But Still...
Even after responding to studio efforts to distance THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, the filmmakers had used up most of their homages to Pirates of the Caribbean -the theme park attraction - and what's more, the film property had proved its own appeal, so DEAD MAN'S CHEST is much scanter in the area of references to the ride, but they're not altogether gone, among those included:

• Traveling Upriver: The scene in which Jack, Will and the crew of the Black Pearl travel upriver to visit the obeah witch Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) directly pays homage to opening of the Disneyland ride in a Louisiana bayou with fireflies in a cypress forest and sleepy swamp shacks.
• Return to Tortuga: Footage shot for but cut from the first film in the series appear as establishing shots in the second when Jack and his crew return to Tortuga to recruit new men, directly referencing the vignette from the ride in which pirates dunk a man in a well then pull him up as he spits water.

But it All Returns to the Parks 

To promote the film at its release, and then to promote the third film, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END, a year later, alterations and additions have been made to attractions at the Disneyland Park in reference to DEAD MAN'S CHEST, and not only to Pirates of the Caribbean, but also to Tom Sawyer Island, newly revamped as Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island as of 2007:

• Davy Jones: Davy Jones, played by Bill Nighy, now appears in Pirates of the Caribbean giving a monologue to guests via projection onto a mist screen that creates the illusion of a waterfall as guests then pass through.
• Bone Cages: The grisly cages made of human bones used to imprison the Black Pearl crew have been reconstructed on Tom Sawyer Island as a photo opportunity spot.
• Dead Man's Grotto: Formerly "Injun Joe's Cave", the interactive Dead Man's Grotto on Tom Sawyer Island features a replication of the Dead Man's Chest fixed atop a barrel, and when guests touch the chest, the beating of Davy Jones' heart can be heard as an unseen Jones speaks words of warning.

Top 5 of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST 

1. Davy Jones - From the design and rendering to Bill Nighy's commanding but quirky performance, Davy Jones is an exceptional screen villain and a landmark in performance-based visual effects.
2. The Kraken - The POTC series makes a habit of taking the best tropes from old b-movies and realizing them with big budget modern special effects, best exemplified by the Kraken, a modern movie monster in the spirit of the work of Ray Harryhausen rendered as a supercharged digital terror.  In short, there aren't enough movies with giant tentacle-based monsters these days.
3. Liar's Dice - In a game for the key to the Dead Man's Chest, Davy Jones, Will Turner and Bootstrap Bill cast cups of dice and build their wagers until one is forced to bluff and called on it.  It's a different sort of action scene with a moment for character repartee and enhances the world of the film.
4. Toe Necklace - When cannibals make you their chief and give you a necklace made out of severed toes, it's a good idea to nibble on one of the toenails, but if you decide to spit it out, be discreet.
5. Hero Shots - Verbinski and his crew include a couple of well-manicured, iconic "hero shots" for Jack Sparrow, neither of which makes a great deal of sense in context, but they really are beautiful.  First is Sparrow shooting the powder kegs during the Kraken's attack on the Black Pearl, Sparrow standing in the mayhem with musket rifle aimed, a beautiful glare from the sun and Elizabeth (out of character, frankly) clinging to his leg.  Then you get the "Hello, Beastie" moment as Sparrow, reunited with his hat, shirt open at the optimum amount, and swinging down his sword in attack against the massive, gaping jaws of the Kraken.

All images via Disney, unless otherwise noted.