Friday, October 21, 2022

The Pirate Movie (1982)

IMDb plot summary: The crew of a large ship sail the high seas encountering other pirates from other ships. The boy from the ship ends up having to save his girlfriend who is kidnapped by a bunch of other pirates.
Directed by Ken Annakin. Starring Kristy McNichol, Christopher Atkins, and Ted Hamilton.

The Pirate Movie is a very loose adaptation of the Pirates of Penzance operetta, incorporating some of the original songs and the general outline of the plot and interspersing it with original 80s rock tunes. When I went to look this movie up, I learned that people HATED it when it came out. It's got something like a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes and got a bunch of Razzie nominations. It's definitely cheesy and silly, but I had a good enough time with it! I was pleased that at least some pieces of the original Penzance tunes showed up, and although none of the rock replacements were much good aside from the final number, they worked just fine if I thought of them as generic background soundtrack tunes. The jokes and one-liners come fast here, and like with any film with large quantities of jokes, some land and some don't, but the ones that don't aren't belabored, just quietly scooted past. I was particularly impressed with a long farcical sword-fighting scene that could easily have gotten boring but instead kept finding new ways to play with the concept. Will I watch it again? Well, maybe not, not when the filmed version of the original starring Kevin Kline is right there, but I'm glad I got to see this weird little movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Pirate Movie > Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)
The Pirate Movie < Anna Karenina
The Pirate Movie > The Romantics
The Pirate Movie < Show Me Love
The Pirate Movie > Man on Wire
The Pirate Movie > Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
The Pirate Movie < Death by Hanging
The Pirate Movie < Evita
The Pirate Movie > Monsters vs. Aliens
The Pirate Movie > Carefree
The Pirate Movie < Wolf
Final spot: #1207 out of 3714, or 68%.

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