The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! Review

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! Review
By Simon Jago

Another fun filled family adventure by Aardman Animations the creators of ‘Chicken Run’ and ‘Wallace & Gromit’. With the success of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! is the ‘stop-go animated’ equivilant. Despite being aimed more towards a kids audience, the pedigree of previous Aardman productions promoted the film to be full of promise.

Hugh Grant plays the outlandish Pirate Captain, leader of a less than desirable crew of misfit pirates on a quest to win the prestigious Pirate of the Year award. However, considered a laughing stock by his rivals, the impressive Peg Leg Hastings (Lenny Henry), Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) and Black Bellamy voiced by Jeremy Piven, the Pirate Captain doesn’t stand a hope in hell’s chance of winning the award.

After several failed pirating adventures, the Pirate Captain meets Charles Darwin, brought to life by the quirky David Tennant. Charles discovers that the ships beloved parrot Polly is not a parrot but actually a thought to be extinct Dodo. Desperate for fame and granduer himself, Charles decides to use Polly to win him the Scientist of the Year competition. Cue an ‘Adventure with Scientists’.

It wasn’t so much as I didn’t enjoy this film, it had some funny moments and as always ‘Aardman Animations’ had created a fantastic fictional world with such attention to detail and the variety of famous faces lending their voices to the characters was also a nice touch. It’s just overall I found this film slightly disappointing.

It’s a great addition to the Aardman collection, but it just failed to grab me like their other films have. Maybe it was because I saw this at a 3:30pm showing in a screen full of misbehaving kids, but something about this movie failed to satisfy. It was witty, charming, and very well produced, but for me it failed to take home the booty. ‘Pirates’ as a film is far from a shipwreck, but in my opinion it isn’t quite the treasured gem I was expecting.

After being robbed of over £20 for two tickets to see this movie in unnecessary 3D, the real pirates here are the cinemas. 3D ticket prices are climbing ever higher and it’s no wonder people turn to the less action packed piracy of the video kind. I think this would have been a more desirable option for me as Hugh Grant’s digital swash buckling antics did not match up to the price. Kids will love this movie but for everyone else I think the best bits were in the trailer.