Review of The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)

Appreciating Aardman films seems to be easier for a certain, shall we say, less colonial segment of the movie watching population. The humor is oft-described as simply "British" whatever that actually means. Strangely, despite my avowed love of the Monty Python films, Aardman just hasn't done it for me. Sure I enjoyed Chicken Run and I tolerated Wallace and Gromit because of the neat characterizations but a movie like The Pirates! Band of Misfits just doesn't draw me in. The humor is mostly throwaway one liners stuffed into a very flimsy plot about Pirate Captain trying to become the pirate of the year. These attempts at humor rarely even elicited a chuckle - they just kind of flopped around on the deck of a nicely animated pirate ship. This doesn't mean there aren't redeeming qualities to this effort - the animation looks a lot better than your usual Aardman fare and when they actually construct jokes instead of throwing them at their audience it can be funny. But overall its humor at the level of Wallace and Gromit without the interesting character interaction.