You just can’t escape those blasted pirates, can you? Ever since “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” came out last summer, you just can’t get away from references to witty Jack Sparrow.

Breaking tons of box office records last year, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” became a surprise super-blockbuster. Unlike the first film that was a surprise hit in the summer of 2003, this new film was not a surprise for being a hit, but rather for being such a huge hit.

It was only a short six months from the film’s release in the theaters before it hit DVD. Now, it’s only a short six months from the DVD release to the theatrical release of the third film, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.”

It’s been a pirate year, and if industry buzz is any indication (along with some really cool trailers that have hit the web), the next year will also be rated “Arrrrgh!”

With less than a month to go till the sure-to-be record-breaking release of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” now’s a great time to brush up on your Disney pirate lore by checking out the recent release of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” on DVD.

Ever since I saw the film at a packed midnight showing at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, I’ve enjoyed it. I thought it suffered a bit from sequelitis by bringing back all the parties involved and trying to give them something significant to do.

Johnny Depp is as great as ever as Captain Jack Sparrow, and Orlando Bloom actually manages to play the action hero for once in this film. Kiera Knightly, while easy on the eyes, had a lame part. It was clear that she was kept in the film because they had to, not because they needed her for the script.

The action was great, although it lost quite a bit when transferred to the small screen. Of course, if you’re dying for your 20-foot-tall pirate action fix, just wait a few weeks for “At World’s End” to come to town. I promise that’ll be pretty cool. With a reported running time of three hours and a similar budget to the first one (or two), I expect the action sequences to be mind-blowing.

The “Dead Man’s Chest” DVD comes with two discs. The first contains the film with commentary. The only other addition on this disc is a cute blooper reel. DVD-philes will find more to love in the second disc, which includes more than two hours of behind-the-scenes featurettes, including a head-to-toe examination of Jack Sparrow.

Unlike many of these behind-the-scenes featurettes I’ve seen before, the “Dead Man’s Chest” featurettes don’t deteriorate into a self-congratulatory love fest. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of lovin’ going on in these features, but the bulk of them focus on the challenges of the production.

The first two documentaries, “Charting the Return” and “According to Plan” chronicle the pre-production and production phases, practically bragging about what went wrong. While at times it seems like white-trash families trying to one-up each other on how badly their trailer was hit by a tornado, these documentaries are a hilarious and often terrifying look into big-budget filmmaking.

After watching these featurettes, I’m stunned this movie was made. With writers who wouldn’t deliver a full script until day one of principle photography to a hurricane that wiped out the roads on the tiny island where they were filming, there’s more drama and action in these shorts than the film itself.



Specifications: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Widescreen (2.35:1), enhanced for 16x9 televisions. French and Spanish language track. French and Spanish subtitles. English subtitles for the hearing impaired.