Despite their legendary status (particularly in their home country of England), Aardman Animations hasn’t been a relevant name in the entertainment space for quite some time now. While everybody is familiar with their content and have very fond memories of their short films featuring their famous characters like Shaun the Sheep and Wallace and Gromit, as well as their collaborative projects with Sony and DreamWorks like Chicken Run, Flushed Away, and Arthur Christmas, they’ve been a little more ambiguous as of late, and haven’t released a feature film that managed to receive any level of noticeable hype (even their recent sequel to Chicken Run was a Netflix exclusive and didn’t create that much of a stir). While there could be a lot of factors as to why this is, their 2012 film, The Pirates! Band of Misfits feels like the point where things started to shift for the worst. In 1837, London, the seas are populated by pirates, most of whom are despised by the ruling governess of the sea and leader of England, Queen Victoria (voiced by Imelda Staunton), but this doesn’t stop them from continuing their plundering and fighting to obtain the illustrious Pirate of the Year Award. One such captain who wishes for said trophy is The Pirate Captain (voiced by Hugh Grant), who along with his unorthodox crew, try to earn enough gold for the prize yet are constantly bested by the stronger competition around them. However, a chance encounter with Charles Darwin (voiced by David Tennant) provides them with a unique opportunity for wealth when it’s discovered that their beloved pet bird, Polly, is actually a dodo bird, and he invites them back to London in order to display her. Although his second in command, Number Two (voiced by Martin Freeman) advises against it, The Pirate Captain journeys to England and is quickly discovered by Queen Victoria, who still seems willing to let them go with untold wealth if they give her Polly. Deciding between his beloved bird and the recognition of the pirating world, this decision may have to come soon for the Pirate Captain after he finds out the disturbing reason why the Queen wants Polly so badly. Although the film was well received by critics and did okay at the box office, The Pirates! Band of Misfits is an Aardman film that nobody ever seems to talk about, and for good reason. While not terrible by any means, it is annoyingly generic, features very bland characters and vocal performances, unspectacular visuals, and a noticeably unfunny script.

Being sub-headed as ‘’Band of Misfits’’ in America, the original title in England is actually The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (which feels distinctly more British than the former) and is also the title of the book the film was based on written by Gideon Defoe (who also wrote the film’s screenplay). Being a series of comedy stories that told tales of this oddball crew of pirates, they seem on the outset to be completely harmless for what they are, but also a little shallow and not that interesting from a story or even comedic standpoint, which makes it surprising that Aardman would decide to produce a film based around them. It does make sense in some areas, as the idea of Aardman tackling a swashbuckling tale set within the Victorian era is intriguing, and having these openly British books be turned into a film by arguably one of the most openly British animation companies of all time, seems like a fitting conclusion, yet it doesn’t seem like anything was improved or even expanded upon from the source material, which leaves the bare essentials for this film feeling remarkably hollow. Since the author was the sole writer for the film, it limits any new perspective or visions that could be added, leaving the material feeling very limp and without further exploration. It’s a disturbingly shallow film where every emotional beat feels weak, the drama is pointless, the characters are so limited in personality and energy, and the writing is so predictable and expected that it practically never results in a laugh. Aardman Animations have never been a studio that were known for being funny, but were instead rather hypnotizing, relaxing, and delightfully British in the best way possible. This film’s insistence on being an off-the-walls zany comedy only makes the resulting empty laughter all the more embarrassing, and the film has no sense of engaging drama or conflict to distract away from this error either. It’s also a remarkably short film (being only about 88 mins including credits) and outside of a wacky villain scheme and bombastic climax, nothing about the film is really that weird in a fun way, which just makes it feel like diminishing returns for Aardman. With only Peter Lord acting as director for this movie (with his usual collaborator Nick Park being completely absent), the lack of flair and imagination that comes from exploring this world, characters, time period and even source material, makes this feel like a personal decision to create a film rather than one that had people actively pursuing it for its vast potential. Considering this was the only time Lord directed a feature film alone, you can feel a difference in delivery when one is missing (also shown by Aardman’s 2018 box office bomb, Early Man, which was directed solely by Park).

Another element that makes previous Aardman properties work much better compared to this film, is that while they also varied in terms of quality humor, they had very distinct and likeable characters (whether they be main or supporting characters) which added to the tone of the environment and even commanded many of the lines, which in turn bettered the chance of a laugh even if the jokes themselves weren’t great. By comparison, this film has such bland and unmemorable characters that not a single one leaves an impression, has a definable personality, or has any truly funny moment or line to speak of, resulting in the film being very hard to connect with and overall, just not very enjoyable. What’s even more disappointing is that this film has a ton of funny people involved in the voice cast, including Hugh Grant, Salma Hayek, Martin Freeman, David Tenant, Imelda Staunton, Brendan Gleeson, Brian Blessed, etc. Seeing this many talented people playing such standard characters and saying such standards lines is simply disappointing, and it’s not helped out by sometimes the acting not always working, particularly from Grant as the lead. While he can be a little hit-or-miss at times, he’s proven to be funny if given the right material, yet his performance here just feels so aimless and lacking in any sort of personality, that it feels like Grant is just passively ad-libbing random thoughts that come out of his head, and the uninterested, mellow way he says everything just becomes monotonous after a while. Martin Freeman almost works as the constantly put-upon yet civil second to the leading man (which is a role he seems to always love playing), but he isn’t given many good lines or moments to shine outside and is stuck just playing a stock character. The rest of the crew are so interchangeable that its barely worth even remembering their names, Polly is given no personality traits so it’s hard to really care about her come the end of the film, even David Tenant as Charles Darwin is annoyingly generic and in spite of playing him up as a bumbling, prissy simp, no real comedy comes out of his scenes, which is a real crime to a great talent. The only role that feels the closest to traditional Aardman is Imelda Staunton as Queen Victoria, as even though she is also not very well written, her insane demeanor, extreme facial expressions, and Staunton’s refined yet unhinged vocal performance, feels in line with some of the company’s other extreme villainous portrayals and can be a least a little fun.

Aardman has always been known for their wonderful stop-motion projects and for creating incredibly expansive sets and models, but in this film, it weirdly feels poorly utilized and doesn’t really stand out. Despite the art of Claymation being a rare breed as it is, the presentation in this film is remarkably underwhelming and doesn’t do a good job showcasing why it should’ve been in this style, especially after their previous picture, Arthur Christmas, provided a fresher look at their form of animation with a mixture of stop-motion and CGI. What used to be charming and unique, just feels limiting and uninteresting in this feature and it doesn’t feel like any of the designs or even locations really come to life in this art style, so nothing feels that unique or that interesting to look at. All the character models just look like Wallace and Gromit skins in dress-up, the sets are well done as expected but aren’t the most fun to look through or have that much style, the visuals are fairly drab and not presented or ”shot” in a very interesting way, and while computer effects are used on elements like the sea and creatures of that variety, it’s not used to enhance anything to an extent that offers something different to experience. Their style is iconic and seeing more stop-motion is always going to be appreciated, but this is one of the few times where it might have just been easier and even a little more effective, to just make it a CG film (or at least have a mixture) as outside of a few facial expressions that feel distinctly Aardman, it doesn’t feel very warranted. Most of the soundtrack features a lot of European bands who bring a variety of unique-sounding off-kilter songs that do at least add to the film’s strange personality through their grabbing melodies and blunt tone of singing, and there is a variety of genres on display from soul, rock, reggae and even just flat-out joke music, but they really only act as background noise rather than offer anything meaningful. The actual score itself by Theodore Shapiro is fine, if a little unmemorable and considering the other memorable musical pieces they have previously created, that is a bit of a shame.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits (or whatever title it is given) is not the sole reason that Aardman isn’t as popular anymore, with aspects like recent diminishing box office returns, their studio burning down in 2005 (which would’ve resulted in a complete re-haul of equipment that would’ve taken time away from making more projects), and just some of their movies not connecting with the general public in the same way that other mainstream animation media does, are elements that have merit for this dip in awareness, but it’s no secret that out of their entire library of feature films, this one  is usually brought up the least (even Early Man holds the title of being their least successful movie). It’s not a terrible film and if you put it on and watch it in the background, it won’t offend or result in any groans, but it will more than likely leave your memory the second you hit eject. The plot is beyond basic and hard to connect with, the characters are so boring and waste a ton of great vocal talent, the animation is competent but not used well enough to feel wowing, and the writing is very stale and very unfunny. Hopefully Aardman will be able to find their footing again and climb their way back to the higher ranks, but until then, people will have to rely on their old classics to feel that magic once again, because it certainly isn’t present in this sunken trove.

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