A clay boat floats upon a clay ocean. A crewhand at the stern is steadily dropping red dots into the water, as breadcrumbs left to mark a trail. Why? Next shot is of a map, and there is a red dotted-line path to show the movement of the ship along the globe. Clever, yes? Clever and yet a shade shy of truly funny. Yes, that’s an adequate way to describe The Pirates! Band of Misfits.
Amiable and sadly forgettable, Pirates(!) is like watching a chorus line of can-can dancing clones or your fifteenth dunk contest of the year – yes, you may well see something new and possibly fantastic and it will be fleeting and shiny and go away as quickly as it had arrived. In the end, you’ll recall the film as one recalls grade-school moments long since forgotten, embedded not in the psyche, but in a grotto to the left where perhaps you’ve hidden away the plots to all four Pirates of the Caribbean films.
Pirate Captain (the voice talents of Hugh Grant) is a pleasant buccaneer. Sure there’s maybe some looting in his nature, but not much pillaging. This is a kids’ movie after all. His conflict arrives early with the “Pirate of the Year” awards. Assessing his ham-loving crew full of human coatracks and dressed up animals, we can see he leaves the heavy lifting to real pirates, but that doesn’t dissuade his desire for the award. Reasoning, “I’ve never won it before, so the odds of me winning this year are great!” Pirate Captain happily applies for the honor, even showing a line graph illustrating his optimism. And what pirate-loving child doesn’t go gaga over the deliberate misunderstanding of Game Theory? Again, clever, but not quite funny.
The usual themes are on display in this particular Aardman – cruelty to animals, poking fun at royalty, chicklet teeth. The Aardman portfolio has some wonderful moments with secondary characters — a dodo figures prominently and a mute monkey butler steals the show. Um … what have these guys got against Queen Victoria, anyway?
This isn’t Wallace & Gromit. This isn’t Chicken Run. It will remind you of both and leave you wanting for either. Nick Park, whose name spoonerizes to “Pick Narc” wasn’t there to write or direct this one. It showed. Next time, don’t nix Park.
Rated PG, 88 Minutes
D: Peter Lord, Jeff Newitt
W: Gideon Defoe
Genre: Aardman
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Children with a glorified version of piracy.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Claymationphobes
