Long-time readers of this space know I have a large soft spot for Aardman Animation's charming stop-motion shorts and feature films, especially Wallace and Gromit and Shawn the Sheep.
Aardman's deal with DreamWorks Animation fell through after creative battles destroyed 2006's Flushed Away, but Sony Pictures Animation quickly snapped up the North American distribution rights for the Bristol-based animation studio.
Which brings us to Aardman's latest feature film, The Pirates! Band of Misfits. The first full-length trailer is now online and it brings all the delightfully daffy comedy we've come to expect from Aardman. Gotta love how the Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant, in his first voice acting role) addresses his crew or attempts to board various ships.
If you loved the Wallace and Gromit films and Chicken Run, it's a solid bet you'll enjoy this flick since Wallace and Gromit co-creator Peter Lord is directing the flick with help from Jeff Newitt. Gideon Defoe is writing the screenplay, based on his book The Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists.
From the trailer, it looks like Aardman's using a mixture of stop-motion and CGI: the mostly stop-motion studio has flirted with CGI, mostly in Flushed Away but it appears they're trying to find a blend between the two media.
Hugh Grant, Salma Hayek, Jeremy Piven Stars in Aardman/Sony's The Pirates! Band of Misfits
According to Aardman and Sony, The Pirates! Band of Misfits features, "Hugh Grant . . . (voices) . . . the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain - a boundlessly enthusiastic, if somewhat less-than-successful, terror of the High Seas. With a rag-tag crew at his side (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen), and seemingly blind to the impossible odds stacked against him, the Captain has one dream: to beat his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Entourage's Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to win the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award.
"It's a quest that takes our heroes from the shores of exotic Blood Island to the foggy streets of Victorian London. Along the way they battle a diabolical queen (Harry Potter's Imelda Staunton) and team up with a haplessly smitten young scientist (former Dr. Who David Tennant), but never lose sight of what a pirate loves best: adventure!"
If the full-length movie is anything like this trailer, The Pirates! Band of Misfits should generate plenty of laughs when it sails into movie theatres on March 30, 2012.
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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