6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
How The Original's Magic Was Stripped Away: Overcomplication/Sucked Out All The Fun The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, released all the way back in 2003, was a genuine revelation: Disney somehow managed to breathe life back into the sunken Pirate movie subgenre, whilst successfully adapting a theme park ride that was first built in the '60s. It should have gone horribly wrong, but what emerged was brilliantly campy fun that appealed to all the family. And then they made Dead Man's Chest. Dead Man's Chest must be one of the most horribly inaccessible Disney movies ever made - not only is its plot confusing, convoluted, bewildering and ultimately incomprehensible, it seems to have been cut from a different book entirely: how did this movie go so wrong? All the elements - original cast, original director, a budget the size of several theme parks - were in place. Another hilarious high seas yarn is all anybody expected of a sequel. Not only did Chest butcher its then iconic characters, it made a mockery of "family entertainment"- everybody who came out saying that they enjoyed this had to be kidding themselves (don't get me started on the follow-up to this one, World's End, which was arguably worse). As a result of two very, very misjudged sequels, the first movie feels a little wounded by comparison. It's a good movie, but it feels spoiled in the wake of this continuation.