Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Disney's latest smash hit from director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer is an enjoyable romp of the greatest magnitude. Swashbuckling, monsters, pirates and not so in distress damsels make this a worthy sequel and so far, the best summer blockbuster this year.

Without wanting to give too much of the story away, Captain Jack Sparrow owes a rather large debt to sea-faring legend Davy Jones. Of course Will Turner, Elizabeth and a great many others, including the Black Pearl get dragged into what is essentially Jack's saga. Everything comes back to him in the end and he's the lynchpin of the entire franchise.

Speaking of Jack, he's immense fun once again, flamboyantly devious as ever. I didn't like Will's character in the first film and I still don't here. I think it's two parts character and one part Orlando Bloom's lack of acting skill, but it's overcast by the quality elsewhere. Keira Knightly is great as Elizabeth, rounding out our heroes.

As with the first film, the supporting cast is of high quality. Bill Nighy is great as Davy Jones, although if he wasn't credited you'd never know it was him. Other mentionable are Jack Davenport and Stellan Skarsgard.

In the manner of a film with a budget as huge as this one had, the special effects are amazing. We don't see much of the Kraken, but it's very well handled when we do. Davy Jones and his crew are superb, with all sorts of deformities and odd bits attached, making them suitably evil.

The ending is very Empire Strikes Back in situation, and while I don't feel the film matches up to that one in general, it's a great sequel and should be remembered well as the middle film of a trilogy.

Go see it, Yarr!