The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists.

[daysofseptember]

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And here's a conversation between Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman and David Tennant which also summarises the plot of the film in eight seconds.


The friend I went to see with with put one of its greatest selling points very succinctly: It doesn't have that "Wallace and Grommit" charm. But I've always been lukewarm to Wallace and Grommit, so that wasn't a particular letdown.

My first reaction was that it's not a film I think I'd see again. I'll probably get the DVD just for the English voices (not that the dub wasn't good, but there might have been more 'Allo 'Allo jokes lost during the transmission). The Pirates is a children's film with a lot of adult jokes. It has a brilliant comedic timing, but for being as ridiculous as it is, the story is also disappointingly predictable. I laughed a lot, but I could usually tell what would happen next in any given scene. It's a very good film, but it's not great in the sense that it'll be the one we'll remember in twenty years from now on.

It's hard to find flaws with the film, unless you insist on counting lack of that extra spark as a flaw. The film is very safe as far as storytelling goes, but it is great fun. I animation was - surprisingly - gorgeous. I've never been fond of stop-motion in general and particularly not of claymotion; I never loved Wallace and Grommit because there is a stilted quality to the animation that constantly annoyed me even when I was too young to know why. But that was never a problem with The Pirates. I have the same relationship to Nightmare Before Christmas --> Corpse Bride. I don't know if they're really using a higher frame rate or if it's some kind of subtle CGI (well, not THAT subtle in The Pirates), but the newer films make me forget that these are inanimate objects being moved around.

Will fandom care for it? Probably not; it's too obviously For Kids and the characters are too predictable and mostly too anonymous. The only ones used for something more than one-scene gags are The Pirate Captain, Number Two, Queen Victoria, Darwin and Bobo. But personally, I'd love a sequel about the adventures of Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate.

In conclusion: the ticked was worth the laughs but the film won't be worth the Oscar.