THE PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS

'''THE PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS'''. Peter Lord, main director and one of three producers, with Jeff Newitt, dir. Gideon Defoe, script, from his book, ''The Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists'' (UK release title for film). UK/USA: Aardman Animations, Sony Pictures Animation (prod.) / Sony Pictures and Columbia Pictures (dist.), 2012.

Animation in the Aardman (Wallace and Gromit) style, set in 1837; significant here only what the Variety reviewer describes as the "climactic battle between the [Pirate] Captain and a swashbuckling [Queen] Victoria aboard her fabulously Steampunk-style ship" . Erlich would not take this film at all in earnest or very seriously, but insofar as we take it seriously, the Steampunk ship can serve as a decorous setting for the confrontation between the Pirate Captain and an unapologetically imperious and imperialistic queen.

5. DRAMA, RDE, 27/IV/12