The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

Graham Lawton, deputy editor

(Image: Moviestore/Rex Features)

The Hollywood pitch for this movie would be pretty simple: it?s Pirates of the Caribbean meets Wallace and Gromit.

But in fact, it?s even better than that. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists is an absolute treat from start to finish: daft, funny, clever and visually stunning.

The story begins in 1837 with the pirates, a hapless crew of buccaneers led by the equally hapless pirate captain. He is desperate to win the Pirate of the Year award but cannot seem to plunder a single doubloon.

Their blundering eventually leads them to board The Beagle, where they meet a nerdy young naturalist by the name of Charles Darwin. As the captain laments that he has plundered yet another ship with no treasure (unless you count a baboon?s kidney), Darwin notices that the pirates have something even more precious in their possession: a pet ?parrot?, Polly, that is actually a dodo.

Thus begins a rollicking tale of greed, double-crossing and slapstick adventure that leads The Pirates! into the heart of Victorian London?s science circles and beyond, all the way to Blood Island and the award ceremony for Pirate of the Year.

The Pirates! is instantly recognisable as an Aardman movie - director Peter Lord also made Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit - but by adding CGI and 3D to its trademark claymation technique the animators have upped the ante on their already astonishingly high standards.

Science and scientists are central to the plot, and as with all things Aardman the attention to detail is painstaking. Darwin really looks like Darwin and the movie is full of subtle references to his life and works; when The Pirates! gatecrash the Royal Society (motto: ?Playing God Since 1660?), it is accurately set at Somerset House on the Strand in London, where the Society was based for most of the 19th century. Michael Faraday and other luminaries of Victorian science make recognisable cameo appearances.

But you don?t need to know anything about science (except that dodos were extinct by 1837) to enjoy this movie. It?s brilliant - absolutely brilliant - family entertainment. My two sons, aged 9 and 11, have seen pretty much every animated movie ever made. They both thought this was the best yet.

And there?s more where that came from. The movie is an adaptation of a 2004 novel by Gideon Defoe, the first of a series of four Pirates! adventures. A sequel is already in the works. The scientists will be missed, but I for one can?t wait.

The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists opens Wednesday 28 March in cinemas throughout the UK. Learn more about opening dates in other countries.

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