Captain Sabertooth and the Magic Diamond review – pirates on autopilot
This gentle, animated pirate adventure from the popular Norwegian franchise Captain Sabertooth is pitched at very young children, but even they may find it a little tame.
Sabertooth is a weirdly bland baddie. A pirate in the debonair mode with a bouffanty Louis XIV wig and fine moustaches, he’s unfunny, undastardly, with not so much as a catchphrase to distinguish him. And there’s not much here for adults either, just a smattering of self-aware gags. (Spot the Shoreditchy, man-bunned pirate with a luxurious beard and designer tats.)
The film is set in the Marmalades, an exotic archipelago terrorised by a band of scurvy ruffians led by Captain Sabertooth (perfunctorily voiced by Kyrre Haugen Sydness). Scheming to get his hands on a legendary magic diamond, Sabertooth kidnaps a young boy, Pinky (Tighe Wardell), whom he mistakenly believes nabbed the loot.
Actually, the thief is another kid, halfstarved barefoot orphan named Marco (Phonsie Wardell), who looks spookily similar to Pinky. Another pair of villains is also in pursuit: Maga Khan, the barrelchested lord of one of the islands, and his heavily botoxed wife, Sirima (Mary Murray).
The plot proceeds on autopilot, though a couple of the characters are nicely done: the pirate ship’s chef is a temperamental Frenchman doing his best with store-cupboard supplies and the occasional rodent he whacks with his broom. In normal times, Captain Sabertooth is the kind of film that gets slipped out during half-term when parents tend to be at their least fussy and most desperate. Now that cinemas are shut and half-term is a fuzzy nostalgic memory, adults might prefer to download Aardman’s fun, zingy The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists for an at-home treat, or Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad for something more swashbuckling.
• Captain Sabertooth and the Magic Diamond is available on digital platforms from 18 May.