FILM BUZZLIST: 5 REASONS TO SEE 'THE PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS'

Award Winning 'Wallace & Gromit' Team Mix Stop-Motion & 3D CG Animation In New Adventure

By: Rachel Heine

April 18, 2012

Avast! There be only a week left til The Pirates! Band of Misfits scours the seven seas. From Aardman Animation, the company that brought you Wallace & Gromit, comes a tale fit for a pirate king. With the vocal talents of Hugh Grant (About A Boy), Jeremy Piven (Entourage) and Selma Hayek (Frida), Pirates! has already created quite a stir overseas. For any landlubbers left unawares, here’s why Buzzine thinks you should climb aboard.

5. The Scurvy Tale!

The stop-motion 3D picture concerns a foolish Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant). The inadequate but enthusiastic leader seeks to plunder as many ships as possible to win the Pirate of the Year Award. His rivals, Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Selma Hayek), outsmart him at every turn. The British humor and physical comedy in Pirates! are bound to get you loaded to the gun walls.

4. The Buckaneers!

Hugh Grant, Selma Hayek, and Jeremy Piven aren’t the only scalleywags in this movie. You can hear David Tennant (Dr. Who) as Charles Darwin, Martin Freeman (The Hobbit) as The Pirate with a Scarf, and Brendan Gleeson (The Guard) as The Pirate with Gout yo-ho to their hearts’ content as the supporting cast.

3. The Mateys!

The Pirates! joins other classic buckos like Peter Pan, Hook, Pirates of the Caribbean, and A Muppet Treasure Island. Anyone with a peg leg, parrot, and swagger can make for an uproarious time. No doubt The Pirates! will join the ranks of their esteemed captains.

2. Swab the Deck!

Stop-motion animation crossed with 3D wields gorgeous results, from meticulously detailed expressions and movement to the wide range of landscape computer graphics can provide.  Like its predecessors, Pirates! uses clay characters with broad grins and cheeky faces. Sony Pictures Animation and Aardman Animations band together to kick their Wallace & Gromit style up a notch with artfully designed scenery.

1. The Crew.

The Pirates!  Band of Misfits comes from Aardman Animations, the team behind the award-winning short films (A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave) and full-length feature (The Curse of the Were-Rabbit) starring lovable plasticine characters Wallace and Gromit. The British cheese lover and his hyper-intelligent dog finagled and floundered inventions, battled supernatural bunnies, and charmed the pants off of audiences from the UK and US. The artistic team is iconic in the world of stop-motion animation, and return to form with their new swashbuckling adventure.  The trailer reveals the same signature style and quirky humor, and from the looks of it, The Pirates! will bring the “Arrr!” back to Aardman Animations.

For Fans Of:Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Arthur Christmas

Why We’re Excited:stop motion animation, Brendan Gleeson, pirates!