The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

An incompetent pirate crew is chasing the Pirate of the Year award. They board HMS Beagle and take Charles Darwin prisoner. Darwin recognises that the bird the captain thinks is a parrot is a dodo, presumed extinct. Believing the prize comes with money, they enter the Scientist of the Year competition; the prize turns out to be a trophy and a set of encyclopedias. Peter Lord directed for Aardman in stop motion, from Gideon Defoe's 2004 book. Queen Victoria wants the dodo, for a dining club of world leaders who eat endangered animals. Hugh Grant voices the Pirate Captain, David Tennant voices Darwin, Imelda Staunton voices Queen Victoria and Martin Freeman voices the Pirate with a Scarf. Lord explained that they used green screen and computer imagery to support the stop motion. A joke in the trailer drew a response: a gag about a leper boat brought complaints from leprosy organisations. Aardman changed the scene and the final version replaced leper with plague. On a 55 million dollar budget it grossed 123 million worldwide. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 87 percent, while the audience grade was unusually low for an Aardman film at B. Who it is for: viewers who like Aardman humour and stop motion. Who it is not for: anyone expecting children to get every joke. The gags lean heavily on references for adults.