Ok, here's my
official review. Very sloppily written because technical problems with the screening resulted in me seeing at such a time as I only have 55 minutes to write it between getting up and going going to work on Thursday.
I think there is a movie in there just as good as the first. But it is so laden with excess baggage it is hard to see. I had a lot of fun with the last hour and bits and pieces of the first but the second is an almost complete waste of time.
However, the faults are those found in the Lord of the Rings cycle (self importance, complex mythology, too many side stories, etc.) and think if Pirates were from source material that had been simmering in the popular consciousness for 50 years then many of the people (including myself) complaining about these things would think them wonderful and necessary.
Chow Yun Fat is completely wasted. His storyline and the Tia Dalma storyline (which I am saddened to see many reviewers explicitly spoiled) could have been cut completely with necessary parts written in otherwise and trimming the movie to a frenetic and fun 2 hours.