What a great movie. A true continuation if there ever was one, managing to be almost as tightly-knit that my other favorite continuation of recent times, “Spider-Man 2.” I love movies like these that set up their own micro-cosmos with their own rules and limitations (or lack thereof) as evidenced in Mada Faká and the other couple of stories I’ve churned out in this chunk of Internet, and to see it all play out is always a pleasure. But unlike the “Lord of the Rings,” “Star Wars” or even the “Spider-Man” trilogy, the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sandbox feels like a full-on MMORPG; as Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and the key crew members of The Black Pearl went over to see Tia Dalma I kept thinking how cool it’d be to have your own ship and be a pirate in that world; in fact, I’m willing to bet the upcoming MMORPG will capitalize on that concept because all throughout the movie the story feels like it’s just one of many others… there’s a sense that there’s so much else going on that you can’t help but wonder. “Dead Man’s Chest” is more intimately linked to “The Curse of the Black Pearl” than any sequel I’ve seen in the past 10 years, with many a character and locale making an appearance here and always with good reason.

There’s a sense of familiarity that I very much like, just as much as I like how fantastical the events that go down in this particular Caribbean, yet nobody seems to think so. Davy Jones’ ship, “The Flying Dutchman,” is able to sink underwater and come back into the surface at will, and it’s like both the characters that inhabit this world as well as the camera that films them are so used to these occurrences they don’t pay much attention to the grandiosity of it all, and I find that to be even more amazing.

Also amazing, Bill Nighy as Davy Jones; if you know your shit you know who this man is, but if you need a refresh then he’s Shaun’s stepfather in “Shaun of the Dead” and the guy who’s in charge of building the new Earth in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” This Englishman plays the tormented Davy Jones in such a way that it makes me giddy just thinking about it, and to add insult to injury, once you see the movie and wonder just how the hell they did to put so much prosthetics and makeup on his mug and body so that he not only has an octopus-tentacle beard and both a crab snapper and leg, you’ll fall on your ass when you find out that all of it is 100% CGI; this talented sir spent all of the shoot in a tight, bright green spandex suit and all of the details were put in afterwards, and not just on him but also his other crew members who take the personas of different sea animals. It’s amazing how these incredible characters can share space with human pirates and they don’t flinch… hell, there’s a fucking Krakhen and they treat the beast as if it were stormy weather or high tide or whatever other regular perils a boat and its crew could encounter when out in the open sea.

It’s the little details that make this movie work for me; the only gripe I could possibly have is that the ending is stretched just a bit too much, but as soon as you start complaining the movie leaves you with an awesome cliffhanger that makes you wish it was 2007 already. Who would’ve thunk that a Disney movie based on an amusement park ride about pirates would be so good? Everything clicks, there’s not a wasted character in the whole thing, be it for something as small as to illustrate the backstabbing nature of the pirate or to be an omen of characters long forgotten that return for more action.

Jack Sparrow is fascinating, and even though he is taken a little more over-the-top than in “Curse of the Black Pearl” the characterization works, specially when you have the world the movie has set up for itself. Will Turner embraces his destiny more and more and Elizabeth Swann, while not given much to do this time around, in the parts where she plays key she does so swimmingly. The familiarity the audience has with the characters is there and the movie knows it, and makes no apologies to move the story forward without any more exposition than needed in order to explain the new elements, and sometimes that’s not even the case (the fact that the camera assumes you’re just as familiar with a giant octopus destroying ship and a “Flying Dutchman” that pop up and into the wwater at will contributes to that feeling). The scope’s bigger, many new characters are introduced and the prerequisite “Empire Strikes Back” ending that’s become a staple to all second parts of trilogies ever since its release in 1980 is amped and taken to such a high last note that it leaves you, as I said, wanting to see where this story is headed…

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” is one of the best, genuinely fun movies you’ll see this summer just as much as its predecessor was, and sets the stage for what’s surely going to be an awesome finale to this series. Captain Jack Sparrow will sail again.

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