It should be noted upfront that “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” $300-plus million box office and (deserved) Oscar nomination for Johnny Depp aside, was not exactly the greatest picture ever made. It was an enjoyable, if slightly unfocused and extremely overlong, bit of fluff to be sure, but it wasn’t the end-all be-all in moviemaking, either. Devote following or no, I’m not about to make a mountain out of rollicking adventure that was nothing more than an exuberant molehill.

It goes without saying a lot of people sitting in the audience (or who bought the DVD) for that one would probably disagree with me. Heck, I can’t seem to move an inch down the street anymore without someone saying how fabulous the film was and how much they can’t wait to see the sequel, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” and how certifiably brilliant it is going to be. It’s almost annoying, but I could totally live with all the hype, talk, brouhaha and overzealous anticipation just as long as the movie turned out to be as much of an enjoyable trifle as the original.

The problem here, of course, is that it isn’t as much fun as the first one, albeit not for the lack of trying. There is more energy and motion in five minutes of “Dead Man’s Chest” then there is in 95 minutes of your typical action adventure film. From the first (admittedly breathtaking) image of a distraught Kiera Knightley sitting on a beach in the pouring rain wearing a wedding dress as the British army comes to arrest her, returning director Gore Verbinski puts his foot to the accelerator and refuses to let up. This is the real fast and furious feature of the summer, this second episode in the based-on-a-theme-park-ride trilogy a visual marvel that refuses to allow an audience to catch their breath.

Yet at 140 seat-numbing minutes, it won’t be oxygen audiences will be craving. Instead I’m thinking, especially with the film’s hackneyed cliffhanger climax that wants to turn the whole thing – almost quite literally – into “The Empire Strikes Back,” that what many sitting in the theater will be looking for is relief; relief from the tedium, the boredom, the frantic pace and, probably most of all, the cyclical monotony.

Written once again by “Shrek” scribes Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, “Dead Man’s Chest” turns into a monstrous and gigantic Road Runner cartoon. Characters hop on boats, sail furiously to some mysterious island, get into a mishap, fight, get chased, jump back on a boat and do everything all over again (and again… and again… and again…). In bits and pieces, some of this is magnificent amounts of fun. As a two and a half hour whole, it’s monotonous, each beat and step of the picture becoming so familiar I kept waiting for Wile E. Coyote to suddenly fall off a cliff and than use an inflatable ACME lifeboat to get to his next pratfall.

The story, as complex as the filmmakers seem to think it is, primarily concerns pirate Jack Sparrow’s (Depp) attempt to find a mysterious chest containing the heart of fabled swashbuckler Davey Jones (an absolutely unrecognizable Bill Nighy). You see, Jack made a pact with the phantom to join his undead army 13 years ago if the demon would raise his beloved Black Pearl from the icy ocean depths, and now his time is up and Davey’s come to collect the debt. But if Jack can find the chest he can control the ghost, gaining the upper hand owning a bargaining chip that could vary well give him control of the entire Caribbean.

Meanwhile, dashing Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and his beautiful fiancée Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) have been given an ultimatum by East India Company representative Lord Cutler Beckett (a suitably icy Tom Hollander): find Jack and be pardoned; fail and be put to death for piracy. Now all three are racing here and there trying to get to the Dead Man’s Chest before Davey’s monstrous Kraken sea monster tears them all to pieces and drags them down to its master’s locker for all eternity.

In all fairness, a great deal of all of this is admittedly spectacular. Jones’ barnacle covered ship the Flying Dutchman is a wondrous sight, while the first real attack of the Kraken is a suitably scary affair indeed. A couple of the sword fights are relatively imaginative in their staging (loved the giant waterwheel three person fisticuffs), while a mid-movie meeting between Will and his dead-but-in-servitude father Bootstrap Bill (a fine, surprisingly moving Stellan Skarsgård) is relatively touching.

Best of all is what the filmmakers finally do to Elizabeth. For all of the first and almost 90% of the second she seems to be more along for the ride than anything else, her character a one-dimensional blank slate whose only reason for being remotely likable is due to Knightley sprightly efforts in bringing her to life. But near the end of “Dead Man’s Chest” she does something so totally unexpected, yet so totally within character, it changes Elizabeth irrevocably giving her a depth and a passion she’s heretofore not known. The actress plays the scene magnificently, reminding the audience she really is more than a pretty face and that Oscar nomination for “Pride and Prejudice” wasn’t a fluke.

I just wish it was enough. Sure Depp is still having a blast as Jack Sparrow but the thrill for the rest of us has definitely started to dissipate. As good as he is nothing the actor does here brings any more to the character than what was already present after the last outing. If anything, this time he bored me, and seeing both he and his character were the main reasons “The Curse of the Black Pearl” was worth seeing in the first place that’s a major disappointment – and an even more major problem – this time around.

Yet it isn’t the only one. This whole thing is as light and as deep as creampuff, and yet Verbinski and company insist on trying to make it and the actions going on within the single most important bit of epic storytelling audience’s will ever see. Yet, “Pirates of the Caribbean” is not “The Lord of the Rings,” it isn’t “Star Wars” or “The Godfather.” Heck, it’s not even “The Matrix,” the things going on within this tale about as deep and as meaningful as watching a group of preschoolers play pirates on the jungle gym during recess. While it’s certainly going to be a hit, there is still no avoiding the fact that this voyage of the Black Pearl is dead in the water.