2. Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest/ At World's End (2006/ 2007)
Sequels To: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which turned Johnny Depp from an indie darling into a mainstream icon. See the previous entry for why I am including these together.
Who Made Them? Gore Verbinski, who directed the original
Pirates as well as the innocuous farce
Mousehunt and the terrible remake of
Ringu (
The Ring).
Why Was It Made?: Pirate films had been a no-go area since the box office failure of
Cutthroat Island, but
Pirates of the Caribbean was an unexpected smash, taking over $600m on a $140m budget. It also received critical acclaim, resulting in an Oscar nomination for Depp - the repercussions of which are still being felt on his recent performances.
Why Is It So Bad?: While the first
Pirates film was vaguely entertaining and had a fairly decent plot, both
Dead Man's Chest and
At World's End are closer to the series' origins as a theme park ride. The plot in both cases is nothing more than a random collection of set-pieces inter-cut with meaningless exposition about quests and artefacts, an unbelievable love triangle and a trio of unconvincing performances from Messrs. Depp, Bloom and Knightley. To cap it all, Verbinski is a complete hack, handling the special effects just fine but having very little sense of comic timing or dramatic tension. Both sequels are bloated, sluggish, insulting to one's intelligence and completely unmemorable.
What Happened Next: Rob Marshall took over the franchise for
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, while Verbinski went off to make
Rango. A fifth film is slated for 2015.