After weeks of hearing good buzz, I was finally able to screen Aardman/Sony Pictures Animation’s The Pirates! Band of Misfits on Saturday morning. (U.K. readers will recognize the film’s subtitle as In an Adventure with Scientists.)I’ve gotta say the buzz was mostly right.
While the central storyline—Pirate Captain’s quest to win the “Pirate of the Year Award”—didn’t grab me (as a comic macguffin, was it meant to?), the movie is a fun experience overall and plays well to audiences regardless of age.
The tongue-in-cheek, historical fiction subplot is admirably original. A besotted Charles Darwin duped into kidnapping a dodo by Queen Victoria, who turns out to be a exotic animal eating menace? Check.Everyone who sees The Pirates! will absolutely respect the team at Aardman for their artistry. Five minutes in and you’ve forgotten all about its stop-motion origins. The character animation and set design is the best the studio has ever done.
The Pirates! opens in North American theatres this Friday.
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7 comments:
I'm really excited for this!
Cooooolll! me and my bro were planning on seeing that movie! :)
Mike, why didn't you come to the screening at TIFF when the director Peter Lord was in attendance?
- Marc Levy
I live in Mexico and it's already been released here. I saw it on friday and totally loved it! As a 'quest' movie it may not work, but as a comedy it definitely delivers. Besides, every single corner of the frame is a delight to watch with all the attention to detail. Gotta love Aardman.
Marc Levy: Couldn't make it. How was it?
saw it a couple of weeks ago. granted it is absolutely beautiful- period!
I've come to grow a problem with stop-mo though. I just can't help but feel and think it is such an impractical form to express emotion in the characters' faces, animation wise.
You can tell that they've tried to extend the facial ability with cut-throat liz and victoria's lips. But the faces can still no way near express as much range and extension/exaggeration of emotion as one can achieve 2d (and 3d).
What's more, I did not feel for the Pirate Captain. there were too many jokes all through-
there was a moment of humiliation at the beginning in the bar, when he begins to show an element of sadness/weakness and they didn't push it enough.
You know what Walt said, 'for every laugh there's gotta be a tear'.
The movie was good. Not great but certainly one of the better Aardman movies. My main problems with the movie are its flimsy story and the fact that the characters are no longer made of clay. Not sure what they're using, probably foam rubber, but the by giving up the clay the characters lose a great deal of that hand crafted charm that, in my opinion, really set Aardman films apart. Still it was highly enjoyable and very worth seeing on the big screen. I'd give it a 3.5 out 5 stars.
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