Review: The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists.

*Tap tap*

Erm, hello? Is this thing on?

*Whack!*

Ah ha, there we go! Wonderful, we’re back in action and this thing still works.

And I’ve woke this blog from its cryogenically frozen status to give a little movie review, the last one being War Horse all that time ago.

Today the film in question is Aardman Animations/Sony Pictures ‘The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists.’  Now there’s not much room for analysis, symbolism or anything of the sort and hey, we’re not in a classroom anyway so this review is going to be nice and simple.

This film is excellent. It’s excellent because it achieves everything it should and then some. Let’s start with the fact this is an Aardman film. That means two things to me – firstly it should appeal to both children and adults and secondly, it should contain a hefty dose of brilliant British humour. Well check and double check. When I brought up the idea to go see this film to my friends, most of them were up for it. A few, however, were dubious – they were worried we’d be the oldest attendees minus parents of course. I mean, how sad! A group of almost 20 year olds going to see a U rated film!?  They must be girlfriend-less, dead, boring, nerdy, dorky, geeky, sad, pathetic, lifeless people who have no time for grinding, drinking, clubbing, groping or dancing.

Well, only some of that is true (thankfully).

No no, I had faith this film choice and my faith was well-founded. An Aardman film is much like a Disney Pixar film – the Toy Story franchise for example is adored by all ages. They contain dialogue for both children and adults, their stories are clever and interesting and they are well made and crafted with love avec a cherry on top. Overall they deliver films of high quality time and time again. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists is no different.

One example of this is the fact I actually laughed! Incredible, I know. Usually I’m quite stone faced watching films (see soppy, gushy, manipulative War Horse and then my review for case in point) but several times a chuckle evolved into a full blown guffaw. I was shocked myself in the cinema. The fact it isn’t even a sole comedy and handled action/adventure skilfully as well proves its worth.

An aspect of the film that caused much of the above said laughter was its little details. Like Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, The Pirates! is highly re-watchable because of all the minute jokes you don’t catch the first time. There were some I noticed in the cinema such as one pirate crew member wearing a Blue Peter badge, as well as on an entry form for ‘Pirate of the Year’, the loudness scale topped at ‘Brian Blessed’ level (who in fact voiced the Pirate King).  I’m sure there were many more I didn’t catch, which is most certainly a good thing – I loved the attention to detail.

The Pirates! is of course a stop-motion animation film, being from Aardman and all. They’ve clearly perfected the production time for stop-motion since The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as that took over five years to produce. However, another method that was introduced to keep production efficient was the CGI. Unlike The Curse of the Were-Rabbit which was solely stop-motion animation and Flushed Away which was solely CGI animation, The Pirates! has a mixture of both to great effect. For example, the sea would be practically impossible to animation with clay, so CGI was used instead. And surprisingly, they blended well together – it wasn’t jarring in the slightest.

Concerning the stop-motion animation – it’s just amazing. Any stop-motion animation impresses me because it takes such patience and skill. I think its effects are clear if we compare The Pirates! with Flushed Away (which used CGI in the style of stop-animation). The real deal in The Pirates! adds this fantastic level of texture, it’s so tactile and tangible. These models actually exist and you can immediately sense it. It’s this very reason why so many scathe the overuse of CGI in films today (including myself), if something is not really there in the scene it’s as clear as day.

Enter mini-rant paragraphs about CGI. One good example of this ghastly use of CGI is the Star Wars films. Whilst many look upon the original with rose-tinted spectacles, one aspect that is absolutely true no matter what is the visuals. In the original three films, they used models and miniatures to convey the huge star destroyers or planets. And it works – you can feel the monumental destroyer pass over you in the opening shot, you can feel the AT-AT’s march on jerkily through the planet Hoth. With the prequels, Lucas just went crazy with the CGI – most of the time the actors are just standing on a green screen stage in front of some glitzy, showy background. It’s empty, lifeless and so very boring.

Anybody who has seen Jason and the Argonauts will remember the famous sword fight against seven skeleton warriors, done by stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen – it is truly awesome, and this was back in 1963!

(Might I add I’m not saying all CGI is bad, only when it’s overused. Neither am I saying it’s easier – good CGI animators are just as competent as stop-motion animators.)

Whilst watching some of the set action pieces in The Pirates!  I had to remind myself this was made with pieces of clay moved with minuscule precision thousands of times. It’s astounding when it all comes together to achieve shots so fast and frantic they match something out of Rambo.

To conclude, I’ll just add that the cast were superb. Hugh Grant’s bumbly, British persona transitions well to the Pirate Captain and among his crew you’ll notice many other noted British actors including Russell Tovey, Lenny Henry, Ashley Jensen and Martin Freeman.

Overall The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists is a fun, jolly film. Imagine Wallace & Gromit in pirate form and there you go, need I say more? Go watch it, or bask forever in the scurvy depths of Davy Jones’ locker!