Aardman fire on all cylinders yet only hit half of their targets with The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

There are many things to anticipate about an Aardman release. The excellent Claymation, that witty British humour, the eccentric characters…

The Pirates! Band of Misfits has all of these elements, but doesn’t make a great movie out of them. A solidly entertaining movie yes, but not a film that matches the greatness of the Wallace and Gromit days.

As the title suggests, this is an animated adventure tale about pirates. To be more specific it is about the Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant), a man who enjoys a good plundering, takes pride in his glorious beard and loves his pet parrot.

With the “Pirate of the Year” awards around the corner, Pirate Captain and his crew of scallywags (voiced by the likes of Brendan Gleeson and Martin Freeman) take to the high seas to find a bounty worthy of entering the awards. Instead they find a young Charles Darwin (David Tennant), who informs them that their beloved parrot is in fact a rare dodo, a discovery priceless in the scientific world.

(For those wondering why Darwin is in a film about pirates, it’s because the film is based on the children book “The Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists.” No idea why they changed the name.)

As directed by Phil Lord, Pirates… does a nice job in skewering the pirate mythos, without resorting to pop culture references to get a chuckle (ala the Shrek movies). Yet chuckles rather than riotous laughter is the sound that these jokes evoke, for while the film is funny the ratio between jokes that work and those than do not are too close for comfort.

It’s not without a lack of trying. Screenwriter Gideon Defoe (he who wrote the books which the film is based on) makes sure that no pirate cliché or Victorian era stereotype is wasted, throwing it all to the audience in hopes it will get a response.

It’s voice cast are just as gung-ho with Hugh Grant especially good in his first animated feature, as that bumbling screen persona is put on hold in his portrayal of an over confident pirate whose enthusiasm does not meet his lofty expectations. (Much like the film itself, ironically).

The gusto which Pirates… presents itself is to be applauded. It’s a visually appealing film, and there are moments of adventure and comedy spread throughout which will entertain. But enthusiasm can only take a film so far, with Pirates an enjoyable yet middling animated tale.