Cast:
Hugh Grant (the Pirate Captain), Martin Freeman (the Pirate with a Scarf/Number Two), Imelda Staunton (Queen Victoria), David Tennant (Charles Darwin), Jeremy Piven (Black Bellamy), Salma Hayek (Cutlass Liz), Lenny Henry (Peg-Leg Hastings), Brian Blessed (Pirate King), Russell Tovey / Anton Yelchin (Albino Pirate [United Kingdom] / [United States]), Brendan Gleeson (Pirate with Gout), Ashley Jensen (Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate), Ben Whitehead / Al Roker (Pirate Who Likes Sunsets and Kittens [UK] / [USA]) Directed by Peter Lord (#160 - Chicken Run) and Jeff Newitt.
Review:
"We had one of those meetings that you have in development departments where there’s 30 books on the table, people discussing if any of them will make a TV series or a movie, and I picked this thing up off the table and I read five pages. It made me laugh so much. Seldom, indeed, have I read anything that’s had so much fun in it so quickly. So I thought, “Well, we’ll do that!” That’s just the start of a very long process because it wasn’t really as much of a story in the book, so that was two years to get the draft together."
Sure, why not. It's been a very long time since I covered a feature made by Aardman Animations*, and this was their fifth one released to theaters and a bit of a return to stop motion, as their last two movies (Flushed Away [2006] and Arthur Christmas [2011]) were done in CG. This movie was planned to be in CG, but their partners in Sony saw the models used as reference that seemed better for stop-motion, albeit with computer generated imagery used for scenery, such as with the sea (at any rate, art of the film does exist to view for oneself). The source material is a book series that English novelist Gideon Defoe first created with The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists in 2004 that lasted for five more novels in eight years, and it perhaps is not a surprise to see that Dafoe wrote the screenplay for this film. Outside of the United Kingdom, the movie was released under the title of "The Pirates! Band of Misfits", and it is where you get two different voice actors for select characters. The movie was a mild hit with audiences, but apparently its failure to make more money internationally led to Sony (who apparently had high expectations) not going forward with partnering for a second Pirates movie, which would've apparently been about cowboys. This was the 2nd of two movies Lord (the co-founder of Aardman) has directed, as he since has spent time as an executive producer on a variety of Aardman projects, while co-director Jeff Newitt worked on Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023). The next movie made by Aardman was with StudioCanal for Shaun the Sheep Movie in 2015.
I don't really care for using the word "cartoon" for a movie, but I'm sure this type of movie would fall under that label for most people with its intent of just having fun with pirates in the 19th century (1837, specifically) that goes with the flow of living dodos and adversarial queens for 88 minutes. The animation is nice enough to serve as the backdrop for quite a few charming gags (mostly visual) and it clearly will work enough in patience for anybody that got a kick out of Cutthroat Island (1995), despite a few limitations. You can't really take it seriously as a historical movie, but I do wonder if we see that many movies that make light of old dead presidents (some of whom actually owned slaves when in power) as much as others make light of dead monarchs (just to throw one random fact down the hole, Darwin married in 1838 to his first cousin Emma Wedgwood and had ten children). At least Grant* seems to be having a fine time playing a wayward pirate, one that is fairly goofy but endearing enough to go with the evident road to go down in generally good timing (namely dry). Freeman and Tennant accompany him with varying levels of success in timing to react to the teetering absurdity that is fairly dry and yet still sly enough to make it a good bit to go with. Staunton makes for a fairly quality adversary in snooty amusement (as one does when playing a figure of a particular design in rotund-ness). There may be a wide variety of name actors popping in here and there that are mostly fine for tiny gags (it does warm the heart to see a bit role for a booming actor in Blessed). The general line of action for the film most revolves around setting up amusing little situations, whether that involves time spent with, well, scientists and a climax that is relatively engaging in setup to at least give the folks something to be happy with when all is said and done. As a whole, it just is a movie you either roll with in its whimsical type of timing and style, for which it does look quite accomplished in the sense that it never looks tired or too desperate to get the jokes to land.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
*Hilariously, this is yet another actor finally featured in a review, it never occurred to me I never saw Hugh Grant in a movie before. Also, I suppose I forgot to mention that Aardman has done a few short films. Here's your cookie.
