Arrrrrrrrrdman.

Aardman returned to the silver screen relatively quickly after the festive release of Arthur Christmas last year with The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists. It’s a little different to Arthur Christmas in that it’s reverted back to its original style of using placticine models instead of computer animation.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the computer animation in Arthur Christmas, but I do prefer Aardman material that uses the typical placticine models. Imagine Wallace and Gromit done solely using computer animation; it’d be horrible!

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists is actually a very good movie filled with all the Aardman charm you’ve come to expect. It’s charming, witty, well animated, has a great script, some controversial characters and has impeccable timing throughout the entire thing.

The film centres around The Pirate Captain who has no other name and follows him on his quest to become Pirate of the Year. This ambition looks pretty unattainable considering his opponents are much more scurvy than he is until of course he comes across Charles Darwin’s ship and upon looting it finds out that his pet parrot, Polly, is in fact a dodo – the greatest scientific discovery of a generation.

The Pirate Captain must take the dodo back to London to get his bountiful prize thus becoming Pirate of the Year. Unfortunately this isn’t all that easy and the gang end up in various situations that threaten to put them behind bars for the rest of their days, or dead... This is largely because of the main villain, Queen Victoria. Yes, you read that correctly, Queen Victoria is the antagonist; and what an antagonist she is…

Queen Victoria wants to get her hands on the dodo so she can serve it up at a rare animals banquet with other world leaders. She attempts to manipulate the slightly perverse Charles Darwin, who by the way fancies the pants off of her, into getting her the dodo. Darwin, being a lamenting geeky loner will do anything for her and obviously attempts to nick off with poor Polly.

Considering it’s a movie made by a British animation studio in the year of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee it’s all very anti-monarchist. Not to mention the fact they make Darwin out to be a complete sleazy weirdo who lives alone in London with a trained monkey butler. Talk about controversial...

It’s all in the name of fun though, making this movie one of the best movies of the year so far. It’s got plasticine models, an incredibly witty script, great characters AND a monkey butler! What more could you want?

When all is said and done, Pirates: An Adventure with Scientists is a highlight in terms of animation and quite possibly Aardman’s best effort so far on the big screen.

Final Verdict: 4 Stars. Great swashbuckling fun! Extra points for a monkey butler.