Albino Pirate, Number 2, Pirate Captain with Polly, Suprisingly Curvaceous Pirate, and Pirate with Gout in The Pirates! Band of Misfits. (Photo: Aardman Animations for Sony Pictures Animation)
Movie Review: The Pirates! Band of Misfits
New stop-motion animated film is a funny, action-packed adventure
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Rated: PG for mild action, rude humor, and some language
Opens: Friday, April 27, 2012
Running Time: 88 minutes
What does it take for a pirate captain to be called Pirate of the Year. When you see the new 3D stop-motion animated movie The Pirates! Band of Misfits, you'll find out!
The movie opens in theater on Friday and is based on the book The Pirates in an Adventure with Scientists, written by Gideon Defoe. Director Peter Lord told me that he chose to make a movie out of this book because when he read the book he could not stop laughing. So you can expect lots of laughs from this movie!
The movie storyline is pretty straightforward. The Pirate Captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) tries to win the coveted Pirate of the Year Award. Along the way, he and his crew meet Charles Darwin, go to London to take part in a science competition, and get mixed up in a battle with Queen Victoria. The adventures and mishaps that the Pirate Captain and his crew face along the way was what made this movie entertaining. Can you picture a bunch of pirates at a science competition? Can you picture Darwin, the famous scientist, mingling with pirates and trying to snatch a dodo bird?
Part of what made this movie funny was that there were really funny names for the characters. First there was the Pirate Captain (voiced by Hugh Grant). Then there was the first mate named Number 2, who was always there for Pirate Captain. There was even a parrot that turned out to be a dodo bird.
It is rare that I enjoy a movie more than the book that it is based on, but in this case I did and that was a first for me. But Lord changed a lot of the story when he turned the book into his movie. For example, a lot of the book takes place on land in London, England. But more of the action in the movie takes place at sea. There's also a very important dodo bird in the movie, but it's not in the book.
In some parts of the movie, adults around me laughed, and I have to admit I didn't see the humor. But there were other times that I found myself smiling and laughing when not many others were. I guess it's fair to say, there are many funny moments in the movie that can speak to many different audiences.
When you see the movie, the animation will simply amaze you. The Pirates! took Peter Lord five years to make because of the amount of detail in the movie and because each character had to be moved ever so slightly multiple times for every scene in the movie, which was very time-consuming. But the end result was definitely worth it.
I recommend that you see this new movie with your crew and have a blast as you "laugh your booty off."
Check out Kid Reporter Dani Bergman Chudnow's video interviews with director Peter Lord and star Hugh Grant!
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