Lots of people saw Pirates 2

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a big deal.

In its first day of release, it made $55.5 million. That's the biggest opening day ever. And the biggest single day's gross for any movie... ever.

On Saturday, its second day of release, Pirates took in another $44.6 million. That's $100.2 million in just two days. Another one for the record books.

Up to this point, Spider-Man had held the record for largest opening weekend gross with $114.8 million. With Pirates earning over $100 mill in just two days, I'm sure you see where this is going...

On Sunday, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest's opening weekend box office numbers were revealed to be $132 million. That's not just beating Spider-Man, it's stomping on it.

Nobody asked, but my personal opinion on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is that it's a lot more flashy and action-packed than the original, but somehow less entertaining. There's a lot of cool stuff going on and a whole lot to look at, but you find yourself watching pretty absent-mindedly and not ever wondering, or caring, about the outcome.

There's a cool stunt sequence with Jack Sparrow, a bamboo stick and lots of fruit. And there's also a pretty cool sea monster called the Kraken -- it's a giant killer squid. Yeah, and the villain Davy Jones has a beard made of tentacles that look like pasta. And every member of his ship's crew is a half-dead, half-human, half-fish creature so that's kind of cool to look at. Also, there's a couple of swordfights on top of large, round moving objects. Oh, and a few sly refences to the first movie.

But all of that doesn't amount to much. It's all there and cool to look at one second, and gone the next. Most of the big stunt sequences are like mini-episodes in themselves that are impressive while happening but ultimately don't mean much. And sure, Johnny Depp and the rest of the cast is still very good, but do we care enough about what they're doing?

It's almost as if a bunch of really cool-sounding scenarios were thought up and then jam-packed into two and half hours of film... and then a story was tacked on. There's just nothing solid holding together all these separate pieces, and it comes off feeling hollow.

I'm still a fan of the franchise and I won't go so far as to say I didn't like Dead Man's Chest. I'm just disappointed because it could've been great. The Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise is based on a Disney roller coaster ride, which bascially means that producers started with a title, general idea and little else. Curse of the Black Pearl rose above that and felt like a fully realized adventure movie. Watching Dead Man's Chest, on the other hand, you definitely feel like you're watching a theme park ride come to life. Whether that's a good thing depends on your taste.