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The Pirates! Band of Misfits | 2012 | PG | - 2.3.2

Animated feature about a pirate (voiced by Hugh Grant) and his loser crew that dream of finally winning the annual Pirate of the Year Award against their archenemies (voiced by Jeremy Piven, Lenny Henry and Salma Hayek). The pirates must survive dangerous voyages from Blood Island to foggy London, but Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) presents obstacles for them in this Victorian-era "reality show." Also with the voices of Martin Freeman, Al Roker, Brian Blessed, Brendan Gleeson, David Tennant and Ashley Jensen. Directed by Peter Lord & Jeff Newitt. [1:27]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A band of pirates briefly encounters a nudist ship and we see some bare shoulders, arms and partial buttocks without details (the skin looks like fuzzy puppet material). A female pirate with a tiny waist, huge hips and tight trousers that reveal her midriff receives stares from male pirates in a tavern, and English gentleman in a meeting hall, as their monocles drop into their teacups. A man befriends a hula dancer on an island and we see them dancing; her midriff, shoulders and arms are bare. An overweight queen has a gigantic posterior, with cleavage visible in her V-necked dress. A statue with a low-cut dress on a boat displays cleavage. Two mermaids on a map are topless and we see a side view of a breast. Two pirates water skiing display bare chests with few details; one is overweight and one underweight with ribs showing.
 A woman tries to kiss a man, changes her mind, and walks away.
 A man with a severe deformity (not shown) and wearing a hood is shown to be dating two different women and another man looks at him sadly because he cannot get anyone to be interested in him. A scientist is in love with a queen, who shuns him, and he is forever on the hunt for a girlfriend.
 A man says to another man after looking at his eerie old mansion, "You don't get many woman back here, do you?"

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - A female pirate walks into several taverns and stabs her sword into different men who fall off screen, presumably dead (we do not see the injury or blood). On a ship of chronically ill people, one says he has the plague and his left arm falls off bloodlessly.
 Throughout the film, pirate fights involve men using fish and lobsters as weapons, with some smoke from powder keg explosions and shooting cannons. Swordfights harm no one as swords stick out into the audience in 3D. A queen grabs two swords in a ship's hold and swings them at a pirate who runs.
 One man slaps another man in the face quickly several times to make him stop rambling. A man strikes a chef on the head; we see a rolling pin swing in the air and the chef falls unconscious but without visible wounds. A dodo bird strikes a queen in the eye with its beak, blackening the eye around in a wide bruise.
 Beer barrels roll over a queen, slam two pirates into walls and carry the queen down a shoot, where a baking soda explosion of foam carries her out to sea. Endangered animals sit at a dinner table dockside, wearing napkins around their necks, waiting for a queen to land on a serving platter as the scene ends. A queen interviews two people, and opens trap doors and sends them down onto a large pile of rotting garbage.
 A pirate shoots at the feet of dancers on a deck, but we see no blood. Pirates hijack a ship to discover that it is full of weird taxidermy beasts and yellow kidneys removed from baboons; a pirate swings his sword around while talking and accidentally cuts them all in half. A woman stops the beheading of a pirate by axe and the axe man breaks the handle over his knee and walks out. Two pirates swing on ropes through tavern windows to enter, but flying glass is not shown to have cut anyone.
 A wooden sign at London Pier shows a queen holding the severed head of a pirate, with a grimace on her face, and a bloody knife in her hand and fire around the hem of her gown. An albino pirate wears white clothing, making him appear ghostlike. A pirate wears an eye patch over an injured or missing eye and sports a wrapped foot and cane because he has gout.
 A huge sea monster fish jumps from the ocean and swallows a ship in two scenes, spitting it back up each time with a burp. A giant whale beaches itself and slams into a tavern picture window and front door; unfurling its long tongue, it off-loads a pirate dressed in fancy clothing, unharmed.
 Pirates board a ghost ship and we see some ghost pirates saying "Whooooo." A queen becomes angry during a dinner, she shouts, becomes red-faced and drives knives into a tabletop. A pirate says that he used to use babies for squid bait. A queen plans to eat a rare bird and other endangered species at a banquet for the wealthy.
 Baking soda and vinegar combinations explode in thick white foam that fills buildings. A bathtub full of people slides down staircases in a mansion, destroying art and scientific displays, but no one is hurt. A wooden ship smashes two small boats against docks but no one seems hurt. A woman blows a tavern door open with a small cannon. We see a ship sinking like the Titanic, but no one is hurt.

LANGUAGE 2 - 4 mild obscenities, 2 mild scatological terms, 1 anatomical term, name-calling (idiotic, ridiculous, blasted, ugly, trollop, squid bait, pitch-monkey, loser, dumpy lady, nerds), stereotypical references to pirates, women, men, albinos, scientists, animals, reality shows, evolution, sea monsters, Elvis Presley, Jamaicans, the chronically ill, the rich, mad queens.

SUBSTANCE USE - A queen drinks wine at several dinners, glasses of wine sit before guests at a long table at a dinner but only a queen drinks, pirates on a ship drink foamy beer at two dinners and later in a pub, people at a large meeting and a reality show theater drink beer from glasses and bottles and wine from glasses, a man and a chimp dressed as bums drink wine out of a bottle in a paper bag, and a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt drinks a tropical cocktail in an airship.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Piracy, endangered animals, friends, relationships, success, chronic illnesses, evolution.

MESSAGE - Friends are more important than money and fame.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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