Superman may have returned, but the true spotlight of the summer is on the return of everyone’s real favorite hero, antihero Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp).

Picking up where the first “”Pirates of the Caribbean”” left off, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) are about to get married when British soldiers invade the wedding. Apparently both Turner and Swann have a death sentence hanging over their heads for helping the escape of the fugitive Sparrow. However, the head of the British soldiers is willing to make a trade with them: their pardons in exchange for the special compass Sparrow always keeps on his person, seen in the first film that points them to Tortuga.

Sparrow in the meantime has his own price on his head to deal with. Apparently, Sparrow made a deal with the evil villain Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) 13 years ago when he traded his soul for captainship of his ship, the Black Pearl. The 13 years are now up, and Jones wants to cash in on his price. Of course, Sparrow doesn’t want to give in that easily considering the entire last film was dedicated to Sparrow regaining his position of captain of the Pearl. He finds a way around it by setting off on a mission with Turner to find the treasure chest that holds Jones’ heart. Once he is the proud owner of the heart, he will be the one with control over Jones.

From the first “”Pirates”” movie, Depp was the one who garnered all the acclaim; his role won him an Oscar nod. In “”Dead Man’s Chest,”” he capitalizes on the over-the-top style of the character and is even better than the first time around. He stumbles through every scene with an irresistible drunken swagger.

Depp is downright hilarious and overshadows anyone else who even dares to enter the scene with him. The only slow parts of the movie are the ones where he is not present. In the middle section of the film, the writers try to develop Bloom’s character with a meeting between him and his cursed father.

It’s then when the movie seems to be bogged down by the time length because there’s none of Depp’s sparkle and charm to break up the dramatics.

As an action movie, the film is also choreographed beautifully with fight scenes galore. With sword scene after sword scene, it is easy for fighting to become monotonous. The choreographers instead come up with inventive ways to frame the action. In one battle, three of the main characters switch off with two swords among them to fend off the bad guys. To great dramatic and comedic appeal, Depp, Bloom and Jack Davenport, returning as former-Commodore Norrington (the love interest of Knightley in the last film), engage in a three-way argument with swords while on top of a runaway mill wheel. All scenes are, of course, perfectly matched with swelling orchestral music in the background to add to the height of the intensity.

Few sequels are ever quite as good as the original, but if Depp’s role in the third “”Pirates”” movie is any bit as large as it was in this, there are only good things on the horizon. I’m already excited.