I was not as excited about this movie as the first one because, in my opinion, the real star of POTC I was Jeffrey Rush (y’know, the one said: “I am not inclined to acquiesce to your request…..(whispering) It means no.”). Everybody knows that a good action movie requires exceptionally well developed and well acted heroes and villains, which is why Spiderman had Willian Dafoe, X-men had Ian Mckellen and Superman has Kevin Spacey. In Pirates 2, they have an organ playing squiggly tentacled CGI character played by Bill Nighy (of “Underworld”) to face off against Jack Sparrow. Still, I was excited to hear that Hans Zimmer is back in the composer’s chair so I put it into my MP3 player this morning, eager to hear what he would make of this Hollywood pirates tale.

Well, first and foremost, Mr Zimmer does not use much, if any electronics. It’s good old full blown orchestra with choir. Secondly, POTC is based on a theme park ride, so there are quite a few themes in there (as opposed to brooding atmosphere like Batman Returns). Everyone gets a theme: the good guy, the bad guy and the romantic couple.

Having heard the soundtrack now I have to say that I am disappointed by most of it. I loved Jack Sparrow’s theme, which encapsulates his heroic cheekiness and transitions several times through both the lighthearted and cheery through to the thick and the dark. But I have no idea who came up with the cheap gimmick to make Davy Jones play the organ, because the theme, which naturally contains organ sounds, is not memorable at all. To date, no one has been able to escape from the shadow of Phantom of the Opera when it comes to the use of an organ. My rule is, if you’re going to make a character play an instrument on screen, you better make sure that what he plays is damn good. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen very much and mostly fails so everytime I hear that instrument used in a movie I still expect them to break out with that the Phantom tune, just like when I see someone wearing cape in a movie I half-expect them to start floating like Dracula or flying like Superman.

Still, it hasn’t put me off the movie because the quantity can sometimes make up for quality so I will still go see the movie in lovely digital surround in Singapore’s Golden Village digital screen.