The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Britain’s Aardman Animations, creators of the superb Wallace & Gromit films, have come up with a delightfully comical pirate adventure. The story, adapted by Gideon Defoe from a novel in his Pirates! series, has an amiably hapless pirate captain named The Pirate Captain who, in his ongoing (and mostly hopeless) quest for Pirate of the Year honors, crosses paths with Charles Darwin and the voyage of The Beagle. Darwin is especially impressed by The Pirate Captain’s “parrot,” which the great scientist recognizes as a (supposedly extinct) dodo. That discovery takes the pirate, the scientist and the parrot/dodo into the rambunctiously oppressive company of the Royal Academy and, worst (or best) of all, a farcically tyrannical Queen Victoria. Aardman’s exquisitely detailed stop-motion animation, directed here by Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt, makes for non-stop comedy pleasure throughout nearly 90 minutes of fancifully facetious storytelling. A sterling cast of actors is on hand to provide the animated characters’ voices: Hugh Grant (The Pirate Captain), Martin Freeman (The Pirate with a Scarf), Imelda Staunton (Queen Victoria), David Tennant (Charles Darwin), Jeremy Piven (Black Bellamy), Salma Hayek (Cutlass Liz), among others. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated PG.