“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” is as long and unwieldy as its title. No sooner do you sit down than the movie arrives like a rum-bloated Cineplex pirate sent to paw through your pockets for cash. The 2003 “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl” was an out-of-left-field hit that blew away audience expectations with its cartoony touch and Johnny Depp’s truly inspired performance as Captain Jack Sparrow. Mr. Depp played his pirate like a methadone-soaked drag queen doing an impression of Rex Harrison loaded to the gills on absinthe, and he owned “Black Pearl” the way Faye Dunaway owned “Mommie Dearest.” The filmmakers should have stopped there, but knowing when to stop isn’t the Hollywood specialty, and so we get this joyless cash-in that offers ponderous drama instead of sea-faring silliness.

Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) are in the midst of being wed when their nuptials are interrupted by the evil Lord Beckett. Beckett tries to force Turner to track down Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), so that he can steal Sparrow’s magic compass and find the hidden heart of Davy Jones, a piratical piece of calamari who has a giant pet squid that he summons with a primitive version of the Clapper to kill his enemies. But Sparrow is also on the track of Davy Jones’s heart — he wants to use it as leverage to forgive some kind of supernatural debt that he has incurred.

The plot of the first film was just as ludicrously long-winded, but Mr. Depp’s surprise performance ricocheted around it, stirring things up and egging on the other scenery-chewers, like Geoffrey Rush. This time around Mr. Depp has been hired to repeat himself, and so his tics and mannerisms come across as mugging, rather than inspiration. The other pirates occupy themselves with creating variations on the ways to say “yargh.” Keira Knightley crosses the thin line between sassy and annoying in the wrong direction and never looks back, while Orlando Bloom mostly does an impression of a dining room chair: stiff and wooden.

“Dead Man’s Chest” does offer one breath of fresh air: the design.The energy that drove Mr. Depp’s performance in “Black Pearl” seems to have been transferred to the art department and the massive sets snap, crackle, and pop with layers of bizarre details and baroque encrustations. Chief among these are the Flying Dutchman’s captain, Davy Jones, and his cursed crew, who look like an all-you-can-eat buffet at the Red Lobster that has unmoored itself to crash through the sea like a submarine, crewed by angry shrimp, animated fish sticks, and cursed lobsters.

Whenever the eye candy shows up, “Dead Man’s Chest” offers something to look at, but otherwise it is a series of diminished returns; there’s the distinct feeling that the filmmakers are more interested in plundering their paychecks than providing audiences a good time.