Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

The lovable pirate Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) is back for more fun in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. With young lovers Will Turner (Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) along for the ride, the adventure promises to be just as exciting as the original blockbuster was. Based on Walt Disney's Pirates Of The Caribbean theme ride and on characters created by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, and Jay Wolpert. (Tricia Spears)

Special features on Disc One include a Liar's Dice game, a movie showcase, and the same commentary track with Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio as on the DVD reviewed in Issue 115. There are also up-front ads. The following special features on Disc Two, which are the same as on the DVD reviewed in Issue 115, are a 26-minute pre-production documentary Charting The Return, the following featurettes: According To Plan (63 minutes); the 28-minute Captain Jack: From Head To Toe, which is a look at the pirate and can be watched in its entirety or as an interactive feature where you are able to choose certain parts of Johnny Depp and look at them piece by piece (and who wouldn't want to do that?!); Mastering The Blade with three different sections—Orlando Bloom (six minutes), Keira Knightley (five minutes), and Jack Davenport (five minutes); Meet Davy Jones: Anatomy Of A Legend (12-1/2 minutes); Creating The Kraken (ten minutes); Dead Men Tell New Tales: Re-Imagineering The Attraction, which is a 13-minute behind-the-scenes look at updating the famous ride; and Fly On The Set: The Bone Cage (four minutes). There is also a five-minute photo diary presented by Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a four-minute Pirates On Main Street: The Dead Man's Chest Premiere, and a four-minute blooper reel. Additionally, there are stills from the set, two featurettes under "Pirates On Location"—"Cannibal Island" (eight minutes), and "Tortuga Bar Brawl" (3-1/2 minutes); three featurettes under "Inside Dead Man's Chest"—"Pirate Lore" (2-1/2 mintues), "Locations & Sets" (four minutes), and "Story & Characters" (2-1/2 minutes); theatrical trailers in English, French, Portuguese, Italian, and German; and teaser trailers in English, Spanish, Italian, and German.

The H.264 AVC-encoded 2.40:1 Blu-ray Disc looks superb, with excellent resolution and depth of field. Colors are bold and accurate.. Black levels are deep and shadow delineation is impressive. This is a beautiful high-definition image, a new reference for the Blu-ray Disc format. (Danny Richelieu)

The 24-bit, 48 kHz uncompressed linear PCM 5.1-channel soundtrack has incredible dynamic range and clarity, with a fantastic mix that is even more believable with such articulation. Deep bass permeates the room by way of each of the channels, dropping down below 30 Hz in the full-range channels, but the LFE channel is encoded at dangerously high levels at times. A high-pitched ringing can be heard on occasion, and dialogue can sound ADR-produced at times, both of which are disappointing when considering how fantastic the rest of the soundtrack is. (Danny Richelieu)