Python Hyena Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012): Dir: Peter Lord, Jeff Newitt / Voices: Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Imelda Staunton, Martin Freeman, Salma Hayek: Claymation comedy directed at families that adds a hint of individuality within the humorous take on the often dark subject matter. Hugh Grant voices Pirate Captain who desires to win the pirate of the year award. Why he calls himself Pirate Captain as oppose to a normal Tom, Dick or Jane name is not given. At any rate he is opposed by two sinister forces. One, Queen Victoria wants every pirate and ship destroyed. Second, Charles Darwin desires to win the scientist of the year award and sights Pirate Captain's pet as the object of desire. Polly is seen as a big boned parrot but Darwin recognizes it as the extinct dodo bird. This is not much of a plot but the whole dodo bird element is a terrific addition to the story. Pirate Captain will learn the values of life including friendship. The problem is that he and Darwin are the only characters of interest that keep this from becoming a shipwreck. Grant is perfect as the voice of the humble Pirate Captain, and David Tennant as Darwin makes for a terrific villain. On the other hand Queen Victoria is a rather over the top villain whose plans for endangered species is off putting. Then there is Captain's reliable Number Two who is as flat as cardboard. It might have been even better had the characters been more broadly written and beyond the stereotypes presented. The claymation effects are perfectly fitting and will win over families who enjoy the clichés of the good old high seas. Score: 8 / 10

john44233 This movie had a mediocre story line, while still being able to portray some annoying parts. The pirate Captain was mainly the most annoying character in the film which is disappointing because he's the main character. The captain somehow plays the dumbest character in the film. No idea why he's the captain of anything.The story started out very well, with the captain wanting to become the pirate of the year. However soon after he enters the pub to submit the pirate of the year application, things start to go downhill a bit. Just the way he goes about becoming pirate of the year, and then when they find out about how he supposedly cheated into being able to win the title they get mad and take all of his belongings away from him......including his own gold? Right when they took away his gold, that was in fact his, I started to hate the movie. No reason to take that away. Take away his award, but not those things that are his.I'm disappointed with this movie. It had great potential to be a great film, yet started to fall short 20-30 minutes into it. I can understand how hard it can be sometimes to portray a character. There's a fine line between arrogance and stupidity. The pirate captain is nothing short of stupidity. However if you can get around the poor display of the captain, then this film may have some replay value for you. I do enjoy replaying this film, I just skip over the annoying parts and it turns into a decent movie.

Loxlie-2 Such a very very weird movie for Aardman to make. So here's the plot: Hugh Grant plays a desperately, dangerously insecure mass-murdering moron who violently assaults and thieves from anyone he stumbles upon.One of the victims is Charles Darwin who, of course, is a nerd, who cares only for seeing a woman's boobs. (Coz - you know - he's a nerd! What an absolute loser!! He's into science and stuff! Like Wallace from off of Wallace and Gromit, and EVERYONE hates Wallace! Especially Aardman, apparently now...)And at that point it should all invert, and Darwin becomes the hero, but no. Grant's awful character carries on being the hero, by continuing being the absolute moron that he is. Obviously it's animated impeccably, and there's a few excellent jokes (though plenty is lifted wholesale from Muppet Treasure Island) and it was made in my home city, and I'm friends with one of the animators, so I don't say this lightly, but it's quite horrid compared with what Aardman usually is, and absolutely should be.And Darwin would *never ever* call a chimpanzee a "monkey"... I mean, what...??!!

weezeralfalfa That's right, I said the "Snow White" fairly tale! So, where's Snow White?? Certainly not Cutlass Liz, the slinky ethnic female pirate leader. Snow White has been transformed into Polly: the last living Dodo, thought long extinct. The minimal crew of the Pirate Captain's ship are mostly dwarf-like, to emphasize the much bigger ego of their taller Captain, each with an unusual physical or behavioral peculiarity, like Snow White's seven dwarfs. Few of them, along with the Captain, come across as being bloodthirsty pirates, hence the label in the title as a 'band of misfits'. The 7 dwarfs were said to be gold miners, presumably not very ambitious ones. The Pirate Captain and his crew, of course, sought to plunder gold and other valuables, again, not very ambitiously. Queen Victoria has been transformed into the equivalent of Snow White's jealous stepmother queen. Like this monster, who thought she had eaten Snow White's heart(but fooled), an overstuffed shrewish Queen Victoria wants to eat Polly, along with other virtually extinct animals, presumably to demonstrate her disregard for all creatures, as well as humans. The Pirate Captain and Darwin, primarily, along with their buddies, collectively take the place of the Snow White's prince, repeatedly rescuing Polly from the Queen's selfish designs. Like Snow White's evil Queen, who is ultimately banished from the kingdom, Queen Victoria is last seen buzzing off into the distance in her out-of-control airship, while her huge ocean liner is disappearing into the deep, Titanic-like, under the weight of an astronomical amount of baking dough(of all things!) that has suddenly engulfed the ship. This symbolizes the victory of the Pirate Captain's Robin Hood-like band of minimal pirates and harmless scientific curiosity seekers over the unbridled greed and cruelty of the Queen. Also, the Pirate Captain has now given up his ambitions to be what he doesn't deserve to be : Pirate of the Year, and Scientist of the Year.In the end, poor Charles Darwin is still frustrated in being recognized as an important scientist. Some in the audience know that his fame will come much later for a much more important general insight than the mere discovery of the last Dodo. He is also frustrated in finding a woman who will love him, with his seemingly unpromising fixation on collecting animal and plant curiosities. In the closing credits, it's suggested that he will try to get cozy with a Soutn Seas maiden: someone much closer to the natural world he loves than the rarefied upper class British women he was brought up with.The unlikely relationship between the Pirate Captain and Darwin much reminds us of the relationship between Captain Jack and the very Darwin-like ship's surgeon Stephen, in the award-winning "Master and Commander", of about a decade ago. Thank's to Darwin's knowledge, Polly is the Captain's possible ticket to both scientific and pirate fame, as well as the queen's pardon. But, the queen expects to exchange a pardon for ownership of Polly: "the feathery heart and soul of the ship". This conflict over Polly's disposition endures for the remainder of the film.Besides Queen Victoria and Darwin, who were historic contemporaries, Black Bellamy was a historic personage, albeit a good century or so before when this story supposedly took place. Bellamy, in fact, is credited with being the most successful pirate during the 'golden age of piracy' in terms of the amount of plunder he captured. This serves as the basis for Bellamy's claim as 'Pirate of the Year' in this story. The real Bellamy was actually, in some ways, rather like the Pirate Captain, known for his mercy and generosity toward his victims, and likening himself to Robin Hood. Thus, he contrasted his employment of robbing the rich with his victim's employment of robbing the poor. In this film, he is portrayed as more resembling his contemporary: the brutal Blackbeard.With the very negative characterization of Queen Victoria, as the only major female human, the screenplay risks coming across as being very misogynic, and thus imparting a negative impression on girls.This is very different from the much more balanced traditional "Snow White" story. Is this expensive production aimed primarily at children or adults? Seems they tried to incorporate elements that would primarily appeal to one or the other, and sometimes to both, perhaps not always successfully. Obviously, the overabundant slapstick is of the sort that primarily appeals to children. On the other hand, some other aspects are probably over the heads of at least the younger children. As an older adult, I found both amusing and boring aspects to the film, but overall, I liked it.I also recommend checking out the non-animated pirate farces: "Double Crossbones", starring Don O'Connor, on You tube or DVD, and "The Princess and the Pirate", starring Bob Hope.