Review of The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012) by Halfwelshman — 28 Apr 2012

The Pirates! is a good-looking, old-fashioned bit of storytelling, but is a little flawed in some regards. The voice acting is superb, with Hugh Grant completely abandoning his usual acting demeanour and utterly inhabiting the great role that is The Pirate Captain, who is idiotic and misguided, but also makes a rather compelling underdog.

Imelda Staunton is simply terrifying as a psychotic, tyrannical Queen Victoria, David Tennant makes a good bumbling Charles Darwin and Martin Freeman keeps the story honest and emotionally grounded as the ever-faithful Pirate with a Scarf.

The film is pleasingly very uniquely British, and very uniquely Aardman, and has visuals as luxuriant as the Pirate Captain's beard, but disappointingly, it's somewhat lacking on the laughs front. Apart from the usual clever Aardman visual jokes, there's very little that will raise more than a smile, and some scenes completely lose the film's momentum and are a bit of a drag.

The Pirates! is completely competent for the most part, and its nice to see Aardman working again in the medium that made them famous, Claymation, but it doesn't quite have the abundance of jokes, the energy or the sense of fun that made Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run and Arthur Christmas so special.