Film Review - Pirates: Band of Misfits (2012)

Pirates Band of Misfits is the newest animated production from Aardman studios, perhaps best known for creating Wallace and Gromit, the story here concerns the Pirate Captain (voice of Hugh Grant) wanting to win the Pirate of the Year award but when he comes across famed scientist Charles Darwin (voice of David Tennant) his adventure is about to begin.

I went into Pirates Band of Misfits with some degree of optimism as the trailer for the film made me laugh and it also made me want to see the film, so was the film worth the wait?

Well, it was and it wasn't sad to say, first though are the positives, the film is beautifully animated, it was done with stop motion animation and it really shows with the characters having little quirks to them and the various backgrounds having a real style to them that CG animation has a hard time capturing, the shots of the sea also look very nice as do the various models of buildings and the other pirate ships.

Secondly the film also has a very funny array of supporting characters from Number 2 (Martin Freeman), the Monkey Mr. Bobo, Darwin and the Queen, most of those also have great voice acting from Freeman, Tennant and Imeulda Stanton standing out the most.

Sadly though the central Pirate voiced by Grant comes across as very weak and at times it almost sinks the film as his story feels like a familiar sail and it's not very well handled, nevertheless it doesn't distract you too much from the high seas adventure.

So all in all, Pirates Band of Misfits didn't quite live up to my hopes of a fun adventure on the high seas but it is one of the better animated movies of the last couple of years which have felt very very average sad to say, still this movie is a fun one and worth a look, 2 and a half out of 5.