Seen That? Watch This is a fortnightly column from critic Luke Buckmaster, taking a new release and matching it to comparable works. This week, inspired by Netflix’s smash-hit series One Piece, he revisits the most rambuctiously entertaining pirate movies.
One Piece (Live-action): Season 1
Yo ho ho, arr me hearties, shiver me timbers. It’s surprising how many times you don’t hear these exclamations in pirate movies. Then again, regurgitating lines so trite requires a certain kind of shamelessness, so perhaps it’s not surprising at all. Netflix’s series One Piece, a colourfully erratic live action adaptation of the long-running anime series of the same name, has pushed pirates to the front of the zeitgeist, with its vast video game-like world and characters who wouldn’t look out of place in Street Fighter.
The show begins with a treasure hunt-triggering prologue that, as the narrator explains, marks the dawn of the pirate era in this world. But the subsequent fantasy-adventure storyline is from a conventional presentation of peg-legged captains and their rum-skulling subordinates. There’s female pirate captains, people with superhuman abilities, exotic far-flung environments and all kinds of crazy scenarios, from simple overarching goals (i.e. finding Gold Roger’s loot!) to the equivalent of various side missions.
Do conventional, Treasure Island-ish pirate adventures even exist on screens anymore? Storytellers have an understandable tendency to approach moth-eaten high seas narratives from left-of-centre perspectives, often while giving a wink to the audience. The success of One Piece got me thinking: what are some fun pirate movies fans of the show can watch? The Pirates of the Caribbean films felt a bit…obvious, and besides, most One Piece fans have probably seen them. Here are three wacky ‘n’ wild pirate movies they might not have.
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
The geniuses at Aardman Animations created beloved stop-motion franchises Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. Peter Lord’s titled 2012 feature (adapting a 2004 novel) is less well-known, and a minor work for the studio, but it’s still very good—with a poppin’ pace and, like other Aardman flicks, a slightly impish spirit—rambunctious but good-natured. The pirates are introduced in their natural habitat: punching on inside their ship, arguing about the best part of their job. One suggests the looting; another the shiny cutlasses; a third advocates masochism: the opportunity to catch exotic diseases.
This introduction reflects the film’s self-aware spirit, and tendency to acknowledge clichés without making too much of them. The masthead narrative is an underdog tournament tale in which “Pirate Captain” (Hugh Grant) runs for pirate of the year, competing against showier and more impressive contemporaries. This high-spirited film has tonnes of good gags and, as we’ve come to expect from Aardman, divinely tactile animation.
Hook (1991)
“Hook Hook Hook, give us the Hook!” When pirates chant this in Steven Spielberg’s revisionist Peter Pan movie, they’re referring both to their beloved leader Captain Hook—played by a dastardly whiplash Dustin Hoffman—as well as the shiny apparatus attached to his left hand. It’s not the best Pan movie (I prefer Peter Pan and Wendy) but it is the most pirate-centric. Hoffman pulls off a memorably cartoonish performance and to some extent makes the character his own. Others playing the role of Hook tend to get swallowed up by the iconic nature of it; few viewers for instance will recall Jason Isaacs from Peter Pan or Rhys Ifans from Neverland.
One indicator of an engaging pirate movie is how much it triggers a desire to visit the set. In Hook, a great deal. It reportedly took six months to build locations for Neverland, including the titular villain’s ship and Pirate Town. Both look fabulously fake and old-timey. Spielberg was disappointed with the film, but while far from the auteur’s A-game it’s an appealing confection. Spielberg broke protocol, ageing the boy who never grew up and giving him a fear of flying.
Waterworld (1995)
Waterworld
Mad Max, but in the ocean. Thus the hero doesn’t need badass leather boots. He needs badass, erm, gills? In a futuristic (water) world where the ice caps have melted, and the oceans have covered the earth—sadly more plausible than ever—Kevin Costner plays “The Mariner,” a mutant fish-man and Rockatansky-esque vagabond who encounters many angry randoms. They’re miffed for the expected reasons: no more walks in the park, no more laser tag, no more McDonald’s. This dog-eat-dog dystopian world has marauders a-plenty who tear across the ocean on various steampunk-like vehicles, so there’s plenty of pirates.
One however is more spectacular than the others: the bald, patch-eyed, bellicose “The Beacon,” played with furious zeal by Dennis Hopper. Those words—“furious zeal”—could be carved onto his tombstone. This man knew how to pop a neck vein. “The Beacon” is determined to find the long-rumoured “dry land,” a map of it conventionally tattooed onto the back of a young girl. This is a bad movie, with hammy acting (though Costner is pretty good) and haphazard pacing. But the production design is fabulous and Hopper is a marvellously shit-eating villain.
