Perfect, plasticine Pirates!

The Pirates! An Adventure With Scientists
DIRECTED BY: Jeff Newitt, Peter Lord
VOICES: Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Brendan Gleeson, Salma Hayek
CERT: G

It’s not every day you hear The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Ramones in a movie and it’s a rare occasion you’ll hear the excellent Tenpole Tudor anywhere. So when you hear all of these, and more, on the soundtrack of an animated film, you know you’re in the safe hands. You also know you’re not watching a Disney cartoon.
The Pirates! is the new offering from the good people at Aardman Studios, and is well worth the wait after several years in the making. Adapted from the books by Gideon Defoe, it’s the story of a pirate captain called, well, Pirate Captain (Grant), a cheerful chap who dreams of winning the Pirate of the Year award, despite proving on a regular basis that he is really quite useless at his chosen profession. Up against Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven), Peg Leg Hastings (Lenny Henry) and Cutlass Liz (Hayek), he doesn’t have a hope.
But Pirate Captain and his crew – they have names like Pirate with Gout, Pirate with Scarf and Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate – strike luck when they cross paths with Charles Darwin (David Tennant), who claims the ship’s parrot is actually a certain extinct species and a valuable treasure. So the lads set sail for London, in search of riches and fame but end up on the wrong end of the pirate-hating Queen Victoria’s (Imelda Staunton) attention.
This is Aardman doing what you expect – sharp writing, great characters, funny gags and lovely visuals – mixing their traditional stop-motion technique with CGI backgrounds and effective use of 3D.
I would say it’s fun for all the family, but many of the jokes may be lost on younger children. Bring them anyway.

Wrath of the Titans
DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Liebesman
STARRING: Sam
Worthington, Liam
Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Rosamund Pike
CERT: 12A

I’m sure it’s possible there were millions of awestruck moviegoers clamouring for a sequel to Clash of the Titans, a film of such immense badness that its leading man issued a public apology. It’s possible but I doubt it. However, lots of money was made, so we’ve gotten a sequel whether we like it or not. Because that’s how it goes.
His Kraken-killing days behind him, Perseus (Worthington) has retired to a quiet fishing village, raising his son Helius (John Bell) and generally enjoying the peace. But big daddy Zeus (Neeson) just won’t leave him alone. The god’s top dog is freaking out because the pesky Greeks can’t be bothered to worship their gods anymore and without the faith of the people, the gods will lose their powers.
This strikes me as an unusual arrangement, all things considered. It reminds me of the excellent Christmas movie Elf, where Santa’s sleigh won’t fly unless the people believe. Zooey Deschanel takes care of that by kicking off a rousing public rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Mighty as he is, old Zeus doesn’t seem to know this simple magic trick, where you can save the day with a song, perhaps something cheerful like Zeus Is On The Loose (So Lock Up Your Mothers, Quick!). On the upside, he does look a bit like Santa.
Anyway, things really go to the dogs when Zeus is kidnapped by his brother Hades (Fiennes), who’s in cahoots with Ares (Edgar Ramirez), the son Zeus just never had time for. Seems the old man just wasn’t big on hugs.
For added fun, the Titans are escaping and descending on the unsuspecting world to have their merry way, mad mythical beasts who insist on trying to mash Perseus to a pulp, having learned nothing from the demise of their sister, Medusa.
The big plot emerges, however, when Hades makes a deal to transfer Zeus’s power to their father, Kronos, a big roaring mass of evil lava, so evil his own sons had to lock him in the underworld, where he’s been grounded without dinner for years.
Now Perseus must navigate a crazy labyrinth of killer clockwork rocks and descend into the bowels of the earth to put a stop to this wild carry-on before it gets out of hand and someone starts writing far fetched stories about it.
Not much he can do to save the film, though, which is even stupider than it sounds.
There’s the occasional highlight here and there, the odd action set piece that looks great. Even the 3D looks good sometimes. Then there’s Rosamund Pike, who always looks good and doesn’t break a habit while playing Queen Andromeda. Bill Nighy is a welcome sight too as the blacksmith Hephaestus, providing the laughs as he tends to do. The intentional laughs, anyway. There’s a fair few of the other kind as well, most often courtesy of the dialogue, which appears to have been written by a screenwriter’s infant child while his daddy was having a nap. 
It’s not much fun watching Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes doing this kind of stuff though. You could say they’ve come a long way in 20 years, since they were at the height of their powers playing opposite each other in Schindler’s List. A long way in the wrong direction. Maybe you’d be right to lament their crossing over into the dark, blighted land of the mindless teen-friendly fantasy flick and, God help us, the world of Harry Potter.
But you’d only be wrecking your head. worse, you won’t be able to stop another sequel to another bad film.
Though you can always not go.