Stop-motion Film 'Pirates! Band of Misfits' is Clever and Silly

It's a handcrafted means to making an animated movie, and based on critics' reviews, "The Pirates! Band of Misfits" is a stop-motion winner. 

The movie is playing at and in Athens.

Not sure what stop-motion animation is? Think back to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", circa 1964. Or the 2009 films "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "Coraline". 

From the producers of the 2000 stop-motion flick "Chicken Run" comes a pirate tale in which the generically named Pirate Captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) is on a mission to thwart his rivals and win the award for Pirate of the Year. 

Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan calls the movie "a clever piece of business that is a complete pleasure to experience."

Michael Phillips, writing for the Chicago Tribune, writes "Pirates!" is "maniacally inventive and tightly packed, if not overpacked." 

Here's what other critics had to say: 

Wow, what fun. — William Bibbiani, CraveOnline

Exquisitely detailed — from its ocean breakers to the wavelike curlicues on a pirate’s luxurious beard — the movie is a curiosity cabinet of visual pleasures but so breezy and lightly funny that you may not realize at first how good it is. — Manohla Dargis, New York Times

The claymation visuals are charming, and an enthusiastic, if somewhat underused, cast works hard to sell the better jokes (though the funniest gag is a silent monkey butler).

The claymation visuals are charming, and an enthusiastic, if somewhat underused, cast works hard to sell the better jokes (though the funniest gag is a silent monkey butler). — Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

"The Pirates! Band of Misfits" is rated PG.