After the success of previous Aardman animations I had high hopes for this offering and was a little disappointed. The characters are all well-defined and likable with the Captain and his second in command standing out, but I felt that with the point of the movie being the Pirate of the Year contest, the Captain's three main rivals for the prize were under-used and a good chance for all kinds of mayhem was missed. Instead, the film veered off towards London and there were periods where the pace flagged, there was too much dialogue and younger viewers in the theatre became restless and fidgety. I did wonder which audience this film is aimed at. The humour had adult viewers chuckling but smaller children had to have a lot of the jokes explained to them. No one left before the end though. The animation was superb - Aardman is really very good at this sort of thing and this movie was no disappointment. The London scenes were obviously crafted with great love and attention to detail - it would take several viewings to take it all in. Hugh Grant, Imelda Staunton, Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson and Brian Blessed stood out voice-wise, and it was good to hear Tenpole Tudor blasting out during the opening credits.
All in all a good afternoon's entertainment, but I probably won't buy the DVD.
All in all a good afternoon's entertainment, but I probably won't buy the DVD.