All at Sea
Pirate Captain is tired of being humiliated by other pirates and is desperate for him and his crew to win the Pirate of the Year competition. The trouble is his crew of misfits are not exactly a finely oiled machine and despite trying their best don't do very well. But then Pirate Captain has a chance encounter with Charles Darwin who is convinced that the ship's parrot is not a parrot but the last Dodo. After convincing Captain Pirate to sail for England he realises that it may be a trap as they have a close shave with the pirate hating Queen Victoria.
If I made a list of all the things I expected from a movie made by Aardman Animations then "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!" would tick all of the boxes. There is the very fine stop motion work which actually takes your breath away when you have scenes which include books falling of the shelves purely because of the time it must have taken to animate them. There is also the blend of comedy from pirates with daft names to one with a hook for a hand switching it to a Zippo style lighter when they attack another ship as he mans a canon. There is also some clever dialogue and nice use of music. It simply ticks all of the boxes especially when it comes to comically quirky characters.
The trouble is that for some reason "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!" just didn't grab me and whilst I am sure some other adults enjoyed it I found myself clock watching before a third of the way through. Of course I am not the target audience and I don't see why a child wouldn't enjoy it for a single second but for grown ups it could end up more miss than hit even with the impressive list of actors who came in to voice various characters.
What this all boils down to is that "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!" wasn't for me and found myself far too easily distracted whilst watching it but for its target audience of children the humour and the stop motion work as well as the story should keep them amused the whole 88 minutes.
