This is a 2012 animated (Claymation I used to call it.) starring the voices of Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, Imelda Staunton, David Tennant, Jeremy Piven, Salma Hayek, Lenny Henry and Brian Blessed. It has rolled off the Aardman Animation production line with the assistant of quite a few other companies. It went on to make $123m from a budget of $55m which taking marketing into account this would mean a small profit made. It was well received by the critics on release but ultimately from the cinematic point of view its bums on seats that will be the important thing. Post release results have scores of 6.7/10 from IMDb and 86% from the tomato people. The film was based on a book which was the first in series of stories called The Pirates! This one was called ‘In an Adventure With Scientists’ which was changed to Band Of Misfits in America and other parts of he world.
Right here is the sketchy attempt at the plot as the old grey matter may be struggling to remember it in any detail and may need to check some details. OK main characters name? not a great start! Oh, he is called the Pirate Captain, I feel so foolish. Ok so set way back when the Pirate Captain decides to enter the Pirate of The Year competition. Which is decided by the Pirate who has plundered the most amount of money. He captures a ship with Charles Darwin onboard, Darwin recognises that the Pirates parrot is in fact a Dodo and plans to steal him to present it to the queen for riches and fame. He convinces the pirates to enter the Scientist Of The Year award which will give them more money towards the plunder to win the award they really want. They disguise themselves and win the award but the prize turns out to be very small and a visit with the queen. In the meeting the Pirate Captain is offered enough cash to win the prize in exchange for the ships pet which he agrees to along with a pardon from the queen. Returning to claim his prize he may of forgotten the small print of the award in that if you are pardoned then you are no longer a pirate and therefore no longer legible for the grand prize. The queen wants the Dodo so does Darwin, the Captain wants the prize so do all the devious and crafty pirates who will do anything to stab someone in the back to get the prize for themselves.
I saw this in the cinema and thought it was ok despite not being the best Aardman animation out there. I don’t think I gave it a fair crack at the time as I was a bit grumpy going in but it was entertaining enough. Not belly laughs but as a grown up is was entertaining enough. The kids come out and to be completely honest they were not beaming about it, like they had with other movies at cinema trips. It was purchased as a birthday gift and was watched repeatedly for about a fortnight and then faded away from interest and I haven’t see it that much. It is not a movie I will seek out myself and now appears to be a movie that is watched on a movie channel rarely when there is literally nothing else on. It is not a bad movie but it’s not great enough to warrant a regular view.
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