The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)

Everyone loves Aardman films. Everyone loves pirates. Therefore, it follows that everyone will love an Aardman film about pirates. It's logic, bitches. Deal with it.
This film is reminiscent of Aardman's Chicken Run more than any of the Wallace and Grommet films, so it doesn't quite have the same look as W & G. You can still tell it's an Aardman film, but the humans look more like humans, though there was not a single mention of Wensleydale. Like Chicken Run it's a bit of an adventure where the main character must prove he's worthy of his mates. It was a little formulaic, I guess, but that did not stop me from enjoying myself.
Watching this movie, I kept thinking what I always think during Aardman movies, and that is you have to really love what you're doing to do a stop motion feature length film. And with clay or putty or whatever they sculpt in? You have to be downright obsessive. I think that love of the craft really shows through. Could this be done with computer animation? Probably. Certainly parts of the film were, like the water and skies. To be honest, computer animation is advanced enough that they could have done the whole thing digitally and if they did it is so good that I can't tell. But, to me the characters, props and most of the sets look like Aardman had a hand in them. Literally.
The voice actors do a wonderful job. Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Martin Freeman and Imelda Stauntos are the four mains and are superb. I'm not the least surprised since I like them in live action roles. That's not always the case, the crossing over I mean. Not all actors can pull off the voice acting. *cough* Adam Sandler *cough*. The only voice that stuck out to me was Jeremy Piven and not because he did a bad job or anything. He did stick out though, as the American, but I was really trying to decide if it was him or Jason Lee. And if that's the only thing I'm concerned about watching a film, well damn, it's a pretty good film.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits at IMDb