Viewed in
2012
Formats
HDTV
Premise
A clay-mation tale of a Pirate Captain who teams up with Charles Darwin (yes, that Charles Darwin) in a scheme to win Pirate of the Year award.
Loved
"I'm Not Crying" song.
Liked
Some of the comedic takes on pirate cliches.
Disliked
Not enough piracy.
Hated
Charles Darwin, the title.
Thoughts
Not the movie I was expecting, but still pretty funny and entertaining.
It had a lot of cartoony anachronisms and slapstick comedy, and most of it made me chuckle or laugh. But sprinkled between the silliness was some clever and creative twists on pirate tropes, such as the ubiquitous female crew member pretending to be male. The parts that made me laugh out loud was the monkey butler and the "I'm Not Crying" song. That song was this year's "Man or Muppet".
Overall, I was good with the voice performances. Hugh Grant was believable as the incredibly stupid main character. I'm not sure why they swapped out some of the side voices between U.S. and U.K. versions; it's not like Al Roker has a gigantic voice over following.
From the outset, you knew you couldn't take this movie seriously. And it's lack of historical accuracy shouldn't have bothered me, but it did. Mainly, the liberties they took with Queen Victoria and Charles Darwin characters were in bad taste. Darwin especially came off as a completely unsympathetic, pathetic loser, despite David Tennant's best voice effort.
The other problem was that there simply wasn't enough pirating going on in the story. Instead, it was really only about one pirate and Darwin snooping around London and on Queen Victoria's estates. After checking out IMDB, it was clear they should've kept their original title, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! It would've been just as unwieldy, but vastly more appropriate. Due to the misleading name change and no mention of Darwin in the marketing, I was very confused and frustrated in terms of expectations.
The Pirates! Band of Misfits was decent entertainment. Kids will probably enjoy the goofy characters, adults who like British humor will probably be amused. But it was nowhere close in charm, character, nor inventiveness compared to Chicken Run or Wallace and Gromit. Misdirecting titles didn't help either.
