Run time: 88 mins

From everybody’s favourite animation studios, Aardman, comes a smart, hilarious tale of swashbuckling adventure in this family friendly pirate caper.

Hugh Grant brilliantly voices the Pirate Captain whose ambition lies in beating his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) to the Pirate of the Year’Award. When he and his hapless crew (an all-star batch of sea dogs: Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen) encounter HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin on the high seas, Darwin notices something rather special about Polly, the Captain’s parrot, leading the crew on a frantic trip to Victorian London and to the Royal Society itself!

It’s a technically brilliant film, as we have come to expect from Peter Lord, David Sproxton and Co (Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit: Were-Rabbit).

“I think you could treble the IQ of any child, or indeed adult, by putting them in front of an Aardman product like this.” (Guardian)

“Every scene has been embellished with sight gags, funny signs and dizzying amounts of background detail, all enhanced, not obscured, by judicious use of 3D (glorious 2D at The Rex). It would take multiple viewings to drink it all in, but The Pirates! more than justifies it.” (Telegraph) (Simon Messenger) Fab for full-size kids too. Don’t miss.