Arts & Entertainment
Movie Review: 'Pirates! Band of Misfits' is Clever and Silly
Aardman Animations' latest creation is a pirate adventure.
It's a handcrafted means to making an animated movie, and based on critics' reviews, "The Pirates! Band of Misfits" is a stop-motion winner.
Not sure what stop-motion animation is? Think back to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", circa 1964. Or the 2009 films "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "Coraline".
From the producers of the 2000 stop-motion flick "Chicken Run" comes a pirate tale in which the generically named Pirate Captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) is on a mission to thwart his rivals and win the award for Pirate of the Year.
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Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan calls the movie "a clever piece of business that is a complete pleasure to experience."
Michael Phillips, writing for the Chicago Tribune, writes "Pirates!" is "maniacally inventive and tightly packed, if not overpacked."
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Here's what other critics had to say:
Wow, what fun. — William Bibbiani, CraveOnline
Exquisitely detailed — from its ocean breakers to the wavelike curlicues on a pirate’s luxurious beard — the movie is a curiosity cabinet of visual pleasures but so breezy and lightly funny that you may not realize at first how good it is. — Manohla Dargis, New York Times
The claymation visuals are charming, and an enthusiastic, if somewhat underused, cast works hard to sell the better jokes (though the funniest gag is a silent monkey butler).
The claymation visuals are charming, and an enthusiastic, if somewhat underused, cast works hard to sell the better jokes (though the funniest gag is a silent monkey butler). — Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News
"The Pirates! Band of Misfits" is rated PG and is showing at the , of Westfield and . Click here for showtimes at all three locations.
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