The Pirates! Band of Misfits

We've all seen claymation animation before with likes of "Chicken Run" 2000, "Wallace & Gromit" '05, and "Flushed Away" '06 by Sony Pictures Animation and Aardman Productions.
Well, these guys have created yet another claymation project and it is in the form of "The Pirates! Band of Misfits".

The year is 1837. After years of humiliation and failed attempts to win the coveted Pirate of the Year Award, Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) and his oddball crew including Pirate with a Scarf (Martin Freeman), take on the cream of the pirating crop-- Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven), Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) and Peg Leg Hastings (Lenny Henry) in a race to pillage the most booty. They soon cross paths with lovelorn scientist Charles Darwin (David Tennant), who persuades the Captain that the crew's prized 'parrot', Polly could be the answer to the amazing riches they are searching for, because Polly is actually an endangered Dodo bird. Their adventure takes them from Blood Island to Victorian London where they meet Darwin's sidekick 'man-panzee' Mister Bobo, and the notorious pirate-hating Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) herself. It turns out that Darwin's motives for helping the crew aren't what they seem, and the Queen has an evil hidden agenda of her own. The Pirate Captain must choose between enjoying the experience of being crowned Pirate of the Year, or staying faithful to his crew that trusts him implicitly.

Others to round out the cast are Brian Blessed as The Pirate King, Russel Tovey as Albino Pirate, Anton Yelchin as The Albino Pirate (US version), Brendan Gleeson as The Pirate with Gout, and Ashley Jensen as The Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate.

This was well directed by Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt and written by Gideon Defoe based on his book-- "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists". I believe what makes this script work is that the novelist and screenwriter are one and the same. So much of the time there will be a film that's written by 2, 3 or possibly 4 people and it will be based on someone else who hasn't written any of the script. It's usually never as well thought out. But in this case the writing just flowed, even though it wasn't quite as funny as its predecessors, it was still well written.

This is presented in 3D and, my not being a huge fan of this process, this actually made this film work.The claymation process is always fun to watch and realizing the tedious, meticulous way this had to be made, makes one respect the actual process in somewhat a state of awe.

Out of 4 stars: 3.5                   Rated: PG                     88min.