Pirates! Band of Misfits

Story

Under the leadership of the Pirate Captain (voice of Hugh Grant), these pirates are indeed a band of misfits. Not quite sure how to be dastardly, they keep attacking the wrong sort of ships in their quest for gold. For example, they attack plague ships, a naturist ship and ghost ships. But the Pirate Captain needs to steal lots of gold to win the coveted Pirate of the Year Award, which he has never managed to do. They eventually attack a ship that has Charles Darwin (voice of David Tennant) aboard. He recognises that the Pirate Captain’s parrot Polly is in fact a long-lost Dodo. Darwin sees this as his chance to win the Scientist of the Year Award, so he tries to capture Polly. He also wants to impress Queen Victoria (voice of Imelda Staunton), who is known to have an appetite for exotic creatures. This adventure takes the Pirate Captain and his crew to the foggy city of London, where they are involved in plenty of mischief and mayhem.

Themes

Pirates; execution

Violence

This movie has a lot of slapstick violence, which is presented for us to laugh at. For example:

There is a lot of swashbuckling and sword-fighting.
Things are blown up and destroyed.
When people fight, they often hit each other with objects such as frying pans and rolling pins.
Cutlass Liz blasts her way in with a shotgun, then stabs someone with a sword.
The Pirate Captain threatens Darwin with a sword and then smashes things up in his room.
The pirates make Darwin walk the plank.
Queen Victoria orders the Pirate Captain’s head to be chopped off, and a scene shows him with his head on the block. The executioner, in black, lowers the axe as far as the Captain’s neck, but he gets a last-minute reprieve. This scene could be quite scary for children.
Queen Victoria has a sword fight with the Pirate Captain.

Sexual references

This movie has some sexual references. For example:

The Pirate Captain falls into a tub where one of the crew is taking a bath. We discover later that this crewman is in fact a woman dressed as a man.
A scientist says that his invention is ‘good for looking down ladies’ tops’.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

This movie shows some use of substances. For example, the pirates often drink beer.

Nudity and sexual activity

This movie has some nudity and sexual activity. For example, the Pirates attack a naturalist ship, but these scenes don’t show much nudity.

Product placement

None of concern

Coarse language

This movie has some infrequent coarse language.

Ideas to discuss with your children

The Pirates! Band of Misfits is an animated adventure comedy made for children. The main pirates are really quite harmless, and the violence isn’t intense or graphic. But young children might find the movie too scary. You should note that, in spite of the movie’s G classification, the Australian Classification Board warns that it contains ‘very mild comedic violence and coarse language’.

The main message from this movie is that people and animals are more valuable than gold and recognition.

Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include loyalty, friendship and companionship.

This movie could also give you the chance to talk with your children about real-life issues. For example, fighting and hurting other people isn’t really funny and would cause harm in real life.