The Pirates! Band of Misfits Review

Aardman Animation tackles swashbuckling, swordplay and sea monsters. 
Full review by Isaac Handelman

Ever since 2001’s Chicken Run, Aardman Animation has been treating us to feature-length claymation films with insurmountable heart to match their visual vibrancy. Having just released Arthur Christmas last November, it’s surprising to see the studio releasing another film so soon. Have the folks over at Aardman managed to craft another unquestionable winner? Well, sort of. The Pirates! Band of Misfits marks a slight step back for the studio in terms of creative splendor and emotional poignancy, but it’ll still provide a mighty good time for the whole family while it lasts.

As its title suggests, The Pirates! follows the escapades of a ship full of, you guessed it, misfit pirates, led by the amusingly named Pirate Captain. The central narrative revolves around the Captain and his crew striving to collect enough booty to be named Pirate of the Year by the local buccaneering community, even in the face of some stiff competition and the ever-present gaze of England’s pirate-hating Queen Victoria. By the time the film has reached its conclusion, though, the story has taken a couple of admittedly unexpected (however arbitrary) twists, to the point that the typical pirate movie plot has been turned on its head.

This is to be expected from any Aardman film, as the creative minds forming the studio aren’t exactly ones who tend to stick to the norm (these are the same people who brought us Hollywood’s first Were-Rabbit, mind you). 

The film’s characters are somewhat caricatural, but when the central narrative is this wonky that’s all good and fine. Besides, the Pirate Captain is so goofy and exaggerated in his ways that he becomes charismatic, a difficult feat to pull off. His sidekick Number Two is a rather bland right-hand-man, and the rest of the crew are a tad cliched in their roles, but these problems don’t truly stick out too much in the midst of things. 

No, the main stumbling point here comes in a form I never would have expected out of Aardman Animation. While the Pirate Captain is undeniably endearing, there’s no real sense of connections between characters or underlying moral messages to be found within the film. In fact, the only real moral that the film carries is literally spouted out by one of the characters near the end of the film, a cringe-worthy practice that’s mostly extinct in modern cinema unless it’s played for comic effect -- which it’s not here.

My other major complaint is The Pirates!’ relative lack of creativity when compared to past Aardman efforts. Though this by no means condemns the film for being bland or generic, there is a noticeable downturn in terms of level of originality, especially when it’s realized that the studio’s previous film involved an army of elves descending from an enormous futuristic mothership to deliver children’s gifts on Christmas Eve. Perhaps it is simply because the swashbuckling pirate setting isn’t exactly a rare one for Hollywood to take on, but The Pirates! seems to be lacking just a tad of what made Aardman’s other films so special. That is, until the final fifteen-or-so minutes, during which the insanity factor is turned up to eleven. But I won’t ruin that for you.

Luckily, Band of Misfits achieves partial redemption thanks to its wide age appeal. Younger viewers will be swept up in all the usual pirate fluff, but the film also contains seemingly infinite “easter eggs”; subtle nods to cinema greats, pop-culture references and more *ahem* mature comedic elements will be picked up only by viewers who are really watching and listening hard to the fast-paced pirate talk. A few moments of referential imagery to films such as Titantic will also be noticed by more attentive viewers. 

At the end of the day, The Pirates! Band of Misfits fails to fully deliver on the emotional level that past Aardman flicks have achieved, and it’s ultimately not quite as memorable as other entries in the studio’s filmography. If you’re willing to look past these shortcomings, you’ll find Pirates! to be a worthy family-friendly offering, full of visual vibrancy and frequent laughs for viewers of all ages.
Final Score:
6.5/10
“Fine”

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