The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! Jeremy Piven, Salma Hayek, Lenny Henry and Brian Blessed. The film is loosely based on "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists", the first book from Gideon Defoe's "The Pirates!" series. It follows The Pirate Captain and his crew of amateur pirates in their attempt to win the Pirate of the Year competition. "The Pirates!" is the fifth feature film by Aardman Animations, and its first stop-motion animated feature since "" in 2005, and Aardman's first stop-motion clay animated film released in 3D and shot in 2.35:1 widescreen. The film received positive reviews, while it was a modest box office
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl that [Depp's] performance is original in its every atom. There has never been a pirate, or for that matter a human being, like this in any other movie... his behavior shows a lifetime of rehearsal." However, he felt the film went for too long, a criticism shared by Kenneth Turan's negative review, feeling it "spends far too much time on its huge supporting cast of pirates (nowhere near as entertaining as everyone assumes) and on bloated adventure set pieces," despite having also enjoyed Depp's performance. For his performance as Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp won several awards, including Outstanding Performance