Voice cast: Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, Imelda Staunton, David Tennant
Running time: 88 minutes
This movie comes from the creators of Chicken Run. It is a stop-motion animation movie, much like Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep.
The story is about Pirate Captain (Grant) who is not the best of pirates. He and his band of misfits try to do everything that pirates are supposed to do – pillage and plunder – all of which they fail miserably at.
Captain finds himself the laughing stock of the pirate community when he decides to try out for the Pirate of the Year award. After all, he can't do his job well, he has no loot to speak of and the price on his head? A lowly 10 doubloons.
He decides to show the other pirates that they are wrong by really attacking all the ships he sees to get as much loot as possible, because the Pirate of the Year award will go to the pirate with the most loot. Unfortunately, all the ships he attacks have no gold, jewels, money or treasures.
On the verge of giving up, the Pirate with a Scarf (Freeman) persuades Captain to attack one last ship, which turns out to be the ship of naturalist Charles Darwin (Tennant).
Captain gets Darwin to walk the plank, but not before Darwin reveals that Captain's “parrot” is actually the dodo bird, thought to be extinct.
Captain decides to go to London with Darwin to enter the Scientist of the Year award with his “discovery” - his dodo bird Polly, and win the “great riches” that come with the award.
Captain does win, but there is no prize money. Instead he gets a chance to meet Queen Victoria (Staunton) who hates pirates with a vengeance!
Will she spare his life? Will he win the Pirate of the Year award?
This is a delightful movie – the plot is interesting and takes quite a few turns, the jokes are funny, as are the characters, and there are even some nice songs thrown in.
Although totally disrespectful to the memory of Queen Victoria, her character is really funny in this movie. Watch out for the fight scene with Victoria doing acrobatics!
The stop-motion animation is wonderful to watch – especially how the animators combined stop-motion with CGI animation in the scenes where the ship is sailing.
Additional features on the DVD are Mr Bobo's flash card challenge – great to be played by kids and parents alike; the explanation of how stop motion animation works; and even an example of how the bath chase scene was created.
This is one DVD that the whole family will enjoy. Highly recommended. - Review by S.N.
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