Plunderful life?
THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS
Directors: Peter Lord, Jeff Newitt
Cert. U
Running time: 88 minutes
In the latest film from Wallace & Gromit studio Aardman Animations, the enthusiastic yet blundering Pirate Captain (played with gusto by Hugh Grant), with the aid of his motley, yet trusty, crew, sets out to win the Pirate of the Year award, despite having failed to do so for the last 20 years.
Along the way, they meet various caricatures of historical figures, such as the nervous, geeky Charles Darwin and the pirate-hating Queen Victoria, and have all manner of amusing misadventures. The film embraces the sense of piratical adventure, with its rich claymation production design and stirring music, but then gleefully subverts it at every turn.
Bizarre yet brilliant
The film’s sense of humour is bizarre yet brilliant; perhaps something akin to The Princess Bride, Monty Python or any of Aardman’s other films. While not every joke is laugh-out-loud funny, every now and again there’s one that’s hilarious in its sheer absurdity. The film is full of inventive background jokes, right through to the end credits.
Claymation is a vivid and tactile form of animation anyway, and the 3D brings this out further. Of course, the jokes will still be just as funny in 2D, but the 3D makes what’s already a visually impressive film (in its own quirky way) look even better.
The film contains mild innuendo, and an outlandish sense of gallows humour. While the latter arguably trivialises the brutal nature of piracy, not to mention death, disease, and pain, it’s done in such a surreal way that it’s clearly not intended to be taken seriously.
Charles Darwin is portrayed as a comedic character, ably voiced by David Tennant, complete with monkey butler. The film perhaps assumes evolution, but has a good deal of fun at its expense. (Though it’s not a film that takes anything particularly seriously.) Interestingly, one villainous character even espouses a ruthless dedication to the idea of the survival of the fittest.
The film ultimately champions the importance of friendship and loyalty over money and prestige.
