The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012) ***/*****
If you’ve seen Chicken Run or any of the Wallace and Gromit stuff, then you probably have a good idea of what to expect from The Pirates! Band of Misfits. But, if not, expect a family film that feels like a throwback to movies of the past and that stands out like a sore thumb when placed next to recent kiddie fare. Band of Misfits doesn’t look like the slick, CG movies that today’s kids are used to seeing. And it relies on dry presentations of absurdity and historical references to give the adults in the audience things to smirk at, not the hidden raunch that modern family films often resort to. Given how alien things like claymation, dry humor, and references to scientific texts must feel to modern film audiences, I’m left wondering who this film is for. Other than some surface level slapstick, I could see everything this movie has to offer flying over not just the kids in the audience’s heads, but the heads of their parents as well.
No, Band of Misfits might be the kind of film that plays best to a hip, college-aged audience. To the sort of people who pick up on jokes about Charles Darwin, but are still happy to go to the theater and see a movie that’s supposed to be for kids. If that sounds like the sort of demographic you fall into, then you could do a lot worse when it comes to afternoon diversions than The Pirates! Band of Misfits. But, if that doesn’t sound like your sort of thing, stay far away.
The humor in Band of Misfits is silly, but it’s not grasping. It’s the subtle sort of stuff that strikes you as funny a couple seconds after it happens. Following the pirately pursuits of these characters is a pleasant enough experience, but I’d never call it actively fun. You don’t care about anything that happens here, but you find it all mildly amusing. The story is engaging enough and the dialogue clever enough that you just sort of let it wash over you and envelop you without actually paying much attention to it. Watching Band of Misfits is like slipping into a Vicodin stupor. The dialogue comes fast and fierce — blink and you’ve missed a quip — but none of it’s important enough that you won’t understand the story if you let it fly past you. This is the sort of movie that you put on in the background while cooking. The sort of movie you half-watch over and over again, picking up new little jokes each time. But it’s not the sort of thing you sit down and pay attention to all the way through. It’s the NPR of children’s entertainment.
The story is kind of ridiculous, but it mostly works. For the first bit of the film we’re mostly concerned with the Pirate of the Year Awards. You see, every year the pirate who’s able to pillage the most booty gets a trophy and bragging rights to hold over the heads of the rest of the criminal element. Our protagonist is Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant), a sad sack pirate who’s never been able to wrest control of the award away from his flashier competitors. We get a heap of pirate hijinx as he tries to overtake various ships and get his hands on their treasure, and all the while the whole competition aspect of things adds structure to what would have otherwise played as rather generic, pirate shenanigans. Then things get weird. Not necessarily weird-bad though, just weird-weird.
It turns out the Pirate Captain’s beloved parrot, Polly (herself), isn’t a parrot at all, but the last surviving Dodo. This abnormality catches the fancy of Charles Darwin (David Tennant), who intends to steal the bird, present it at the big science competition being held in London, and win the grand prize of a personal audience with Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton), for whom he has an infatuation. The rest of the film involves the pirates trying to get Polly back, which, even more so than the contest plot, is a personal story, and one of grave stakes (for a silly cartoon).
I’ve mentioned some of the names adding voices to these animated creations already, but a lengthier list is probably in order, because one of the most fun parts of watching this film is picking out all of the recognizable voices and marveling that they all showed up in this weird, claymation pirate movie. Joining Grant’s Pirate Captain as our band of merry miscreants are names like Martin Freeman, Anton Yelchin, Brendan Gleeson, and Al Roker. That’s a group that I’d definitely like to hang out with. And joining Tennant in the supporting roles are names like Salma Hayek and Jeremy Piven, who play two of the Captain’s pirate rivals. Could you have assembled a more random group of names if given infinite funds and randomness was your goal? Somehow, it all works though. Everyone in this cast gets at least one opportunity to shine, and it results in a lot of effective comedy. Special attention should probably be given to Tennant, who is hilarious as that Nancy-boy Charles Darwin, always whining about how he’s too nerdy to find a girlfriend. Man, I hate scientists. Also, his claymation monkey butler (himself) turned out to be a very gifted physical comedian.
Decent story and passable comedy aside, the best part of watching Band of Misfits is probably just taking in its visuals. The fact that this is a claymation movie sets it apart from all of the other kiddie stuff coming out these days, and it played for me like a breath of fresh air. Those modern CG cartoons made by Pixar and the like are inarguably gorgeous, and each one manages to amaze more with their photorealism and art design than the last; but there’s something that’s just so much more charming about this hand-made approach. Computer animation is seamless and magical, we can’t comprehend what goes into making it. But, with claymation, all of the artistry is right up there on screen to be appreciated. I especially liked the tiny London street sets that were built. They were intricate and gorgeous, and I’d like to shrink myself down and live in them. If I was an 8-year-old though? Probably I’d just be wondering why everything looked so fake and crappy. Watching the next big Pixar or DreamWorks release is like going to a theme park, watching Band of Misfits is like going to a craft fair or a farmer’s market. You might as well leave the kids at home, because they’re just going to be fidgety the whole time.
