“It’s the wrong trousers, Gromit,” a hopeless, animated British nincompoop named Wallace once said. The geniuses of Aardman Animations responsible for Wallace & Gromit, as well as Chicken Run return with another joyous outing in claymation. The Pirates! Band of Misfits, a beautifully executed film with a clunky title, tells a raucously adventurous tale and features the voice talents of Hugh Grant, Jeremy Piven, Imelda Staunton and Martin Freeman.
In an effort to win the Pirate of the Year Award, the Pirate Captain (Grant) plunders ships to prove his worth. Upon encountering Charles Darwin and the last living dodo, Polly, the pirates venture onto a hijinks-filled journey, in which they must save the poor bird from a vicious Queen Victoria.
The film has a familiar wit and flavor, which has become characteristic of Aardman. The sight gags and simple storyline of Pirates will appeal to the youngest of audience members. But the bending and complete disavowal of historical fact in the movie is what makes it a joy to behold for those above the age of seven. Darwin is portrayed as an absolute imbecile, whose unwieldy affections for the Queen blindside him to her nefarious plot to consume exotic animals.
“She’s like a caricature of someone who’s no fun,” director Peter Lord mischievously described Queen Victoria to North by Northwestern in a recent interview. The screenplay makes an unending mockery of the royal figure, voiced perfectly by Staunton, creating a ruthless villain out of her. The rest of the cast performs valiantly, especially Grant, who charted unfamiliar territory for this role. Lord sought a star to play the Pirate Captain, so as to draw audiences to the movie. Despite Grant’s lack of experience with voice acting, his onscreen persona snagged him the part. “Hugh Grant is very funny so that was sort of obvious,” Lord said of his final decision to cast the British actor. It’s a choice that pays off, as Grant provides the right amount of smugness, while still remaining lovable in the role.
Above and beyond the casting though, the visuals of Pirates are what makes it a miraculous achievement. Combining traditional claymation with computer graphics technology, the scope of the world Lord presents is huge, with rippling waves, sandy shores and ship mastheads that jettison into the audience. Using a tactic previously employed by the makers of Coraline, Pirates was shot in 3D, with an animation camera capturing one frame at a time for both the left and right eye. This creates the illusion of heads popping out into the crowd, or bathtubs cascading down a staircase, one of Pirates’ more technologically brilliant scenes.
Despite the unique personality and flair of Aardman as a production team, Pixar still commands the most attention from American audiences.
“Financially, Pixar is bigger than we are,” Lord characterized the studio’s competition. While this is true, audiences can expect different things from each studio. Pixar movies are often grand and weepy with an intent to teach moral lessons, while the work of Aardman tends to be more light-hearted, witty and fun.
Perhaps for the first time however, with the addition of 3D to their arsenal, Aardman can come closer to challenging Pixar for box office supremacy. “I hope the American public can get more used to us,” Lord wistfully spoke for a production team he supervises. As the director of this film, his job entailed intimate work with the actors, as well as physically portraying what he wanted some of the scenes to look like to his animators. With younger and, according to Lord, more talented animators at his disposal, being at the helm of this project didn’t entail getting his hands dirty with clay.
Pirates is a labor of love amongst an extraordinarily talented team. It doesn’t provide cathartic emotional release or expound on anything brilliant about humanity, but it’s a joy to watch, enlivened by fantastic voice acting and breathtaking 3D. And, having personally seen his other work, there’s no way it could have gone wrong with Lord in charge.
“It’s a bloody big job,” Lord said of directing. And it’s one he’s bloody good at.