Pirate's Passage (2015 TV Movie) User Reviews (9)

Pleasant production of history and fantasy

[racliff · 8/10 · 4 January 2015]

I missed the first few minutes of this animated production and focused in when I heard Donald Sutherland's voice, as I try to watch anything he has participated in. I found myself easily drawn into a simple story with some clever ideas. As the movie progressed, I felt it would have been wonderful to have my grandson watching with us.

The story felt like a Hanna-Barbera movie, but the animation is a totally different style. A young Nova Scotia boy is helped by a ghost pirate to discover about local history, and how to deal with a school bully. His home is a small mansion/inn run by his widowed mother, whose mortgage holder also covets the site for his own plans. Our young boy discovers there are bullies outside of school-yards as well.

Parts of the story unfold in a predictable fashion -- which is desirable in a movie like this. Still there are enough changes and creative areas for all ages to enjoy. You may even learn a thing or two about pirates of the Atlantic.

A surprisingly good movie! But I'd say it's not for kids...

[jandsm5321 · 8/10 · 2 August 2017]

We had a bunch of indie movies to check out on our Netflix watch list and I was passively thinning them out while working. I started this one and got hooked a few minutes in. By the end, I'm glad the kids weren't around, but I quite enjoyed it.

It's done in a 2D CG animation that seems a little cheap, but done well enough to still look good. The art is still well done, I love the character designs, it very much feels like a labor of love.

The story was interesting as well, I look forward to finding the book as I hear the movie is only loosely based on it. It had enough depth to keep me guessing, but I was able to guess a few plot points (which is my favorite balance for a movie).

As for content, it's mostly the language that I wouldn't want the kids to hear. The parental advisory covers most of it, the lady also uses the word 'bastard' once. I think the themes are a little complex for kids too. It is pirate themed after all. It defends the "honest" pirates that only steal and do minimum damage to get what they need, or breaking the law to accomplish what needs to be done. Thankfully the kid in the story still tries to do what's right without going around the law.

I'd definitely watch it again, and I think it's worth at least seeing it once.

Well done, interesting storyline!!

[vanlauren · 8/10 · 4 October 2021]

My husband and I happened upon this movie this afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it! The animation is good and the pirate storyline was really well written! Great for the whole family!

Predictable in some ways but surprising in others

[S_Soma · 6/10 · 11 December 2017]

PIRATE'S PASSAGE, a full-length animated feature, opens with a pirate ship attack on another ship in July 1717, apparently not far from Gray Rocks, Nova Scotia. The attack is especially brutal and "without mercy", and the victim ship is scuttled with, presumably, the death of all hands.

The 7 chests collected in the raid are taken back to Gray Rocks and hidden in a secret cove below the great manor house that sits on the hill above it. It is the cruel master of the manor that runs the merciless bunch of pirates we observed in the attack.

One Capt. Charles Johnson has watched these events with strong disapproval. He asks a young lad, Jim Hargreaves, who apparently is employed in the great manor house, to show him the secret cove where the treasure was hidden; Jim seems to be fully aware of what is happening. Having seen enough, Capt. Johnson, who has his own pirate ship and crew, chases after the departing pirate ship belonging to the cruel master of the manor and summarily sends it to the bottom with all hands as retribution, and does it where the master of the manner can see these events through a spyglass. Capt. Johnson and crew then depart Gray Rocks with the intent to return sometime in future years.

Fast forward to 1952, and at the height of a roaring storm, who should come sailing masterfully back to Gray Rocks? None other than the selfsame Capt. Charles Johnson. And, interestingly, not looking a day older.

In 1952, the great manor house is owned by down-on-her-luck widow and her young son, also called Jim and who (of course) is the spitting image of that same Jim from so long ago. Jim meets the Captain as he docks his small sailing vessel.

Pending inspection by the local immigration officials, Capt. Johnson takes up residence in the manor, which the widow is running as a restaurant and inn, befriending Jim and making room and board payments that allow the widow to stave off foreclosure of the inn. The threat of foreclosure comes from one Roy Moehner (pronounced "meaner"), a Mr. Potter -like character, who is grimly determined to take over the inn and most of the town. Of course, Moehner holds the mortgage on the inn.

At this point there will be no more surprises from the story arc. The set up makes it clear that the Captain will obviously save the day, somehow removing the threat of Moehner and retrieving the treasure to ensure the financial security of the widow and her son forever.

But while there are no surprises from the story arc itself, there are a number of elements from the plot details that are VERY surprising. Here are a few…

Capt. Charles Johnson is some sort of a supernatural person. Within minutes of the beginning of the film we establish that he has "signed on" to a mission spanning hundreds of years of who-knows-what. Apparently of doing good. If that isn't unusual enough, he maintains a very low level of secrecy as many people throughout history are aware of his nature and accept his presence without comment or surprise. Exactly WHAT sort of supernatural character he is is never made clear. The only supernatural characteristics that are ever established are that he can grab burning logs with his bare hands, travel through time with guests within something similar to visions, live for hundreds of years, and apparently gets really cold on occasion.

The Capt. takes Jim on vision journeys to the past to help teach Jim life lessons. Given the premise of the overall story, this is not that unusual. What IS unusual is that these journeys are half visions but also half very solid. People they encounter in these visions, should the Captain and Jim be seen, are quite capable of seeing our time traveling pair and in numerous instances interact with them. Jim even returns from one vision quest with a bit of gore on him from a battle they were observing. And evidently if Jim were to be injured on one of these vision journeys, he would actually be hurt. And yet the most common way they return from one of these trips is by being awakened by Jim's mother as Jim and the Capt. have fallen asleep by the fire.

While the movie is an animated feature, it does not appear to be intended for children. People are frequently killed, the Capt. drinks rum at every opportunity, and the notion of confronting and perhaps even killing one's enemies is spoken about quite baldly. There is NOT a lot of political correctness in this movie.

Most stories nowadays don't allow people who find treasures to keep them, but there's none of that here.

And when the Capt.'s work is finished with the removal of any threat posed by Mr. Moehner and the retrieval of the treasure for the widow, as is traditional, one would expect the Captain to be on his way. Perhaps in a puff of smoke or a nice fadeout. On the contrary, the Captain makes it quite clear that he intends to hang around for quite some time.

The quality of the animation is above average, and Donald Sutherland is not only the voice of Capt. Charles Johnson but he also is one of the two people who wrote the screenplay based on the novel "Pirate's Passage" by William Gilkerson.

Worth a watch but make sure you view it before you let your younger kids see it.

Good movie, better book

[hal-hoover · 9/10 · 21 January 2015]

I liked this movie a lot, but there were some things that I thought deserved to be explained more (e.g., why did Meg have such a chip on her shoulder and why was bringing an American auto to Nova Scotia through Newfoundland considered smuggling?), so I bought and read the novel "Pirate's Passage" by William Gilkerson, upon which the movie was based.

After reading the novel I would say that the movie was inspired by, rather than based on the book, as the main characters are the same, but the plots are much different. The book gives sufficient back story for Meg for the reader to understand the chip on her shoulder. The auto does not even occur in the book. I thought that the plot of the book was far better than that of the movie, so if you liked the movie you should read the book.

Awesome film!

[Jario_362 · 10/10 · 7 November 2017]

As soon as I laid my eyes on the movie that was playing on TV, the way the characters looked like was very appealing. I was also quite impressed by how different the film was, compared to other films, in general. I'm quite pleased to have seen it from start to finish. During the film's events, the owner of an Inn, and her son, are BOTH facing a difficult situation in their respective lives: Kerstin Hawkins is facing the stresses of a foreclosure on the mortgage on her Inn, while her son, Jim, has difficulty with a bully of his own, Todd Moehner.

However, the arrival of Captain Charles Johnson, a pirate who wants to help Kerstin and Jim basically changes everyone's lives.

The film's soundtrack is quite pleasant to hear, though, it can trigger someone to cry, if they go too deep into it.

My hope is that they're working on a sequel to this film, as I've established earlier, this film easily stands out from films produced from this day and age, where Special Effects tell the story more than the characters. I'm very happy that while they did use Special Effects, that they did so only when necessary. If I were to give my two cents for aspiring filmmakers, it would be to follow this film's example. When I watch a film, I watch it for the story that is intended, NOT for just remembering brief moments, where the characters portrayed are basically pushed aside by Special Effects - something this film beautifully avoids. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just start watching it on Netflix for even a few minutes, if you have a subscription.

In my opinion, while I agree that the characters might slip a few profanities, that, too, is quite rare. You can tell it's not very frequent. The actors make their respective characters sound quite real and authentic. For example, one character falls in some really cold water, and his reaction in the film sounds basically like how someone would sound if they actually fell in cold water. I mean, if you were to fall into icy cold water, you'd probably let a few profanities slip, rather than watching what you say. Additionally, during the scene where the woman calls the man a "s-o-b", that's basically the only time a profanity has been used to address someone directly, and a well-deserved profanity. Again, it's one of those times when a profanity would be warranted - as we don't hold back when dealing with people who oppose us. I'm not saying cursing is the best habit to pick up. However, due to the minimal amount of it, I can imagine myself showing any kid I would bring into the world, and saying "Ok. See how they said a bad word, just now? The reason why is this and this, which is what makes it OK.". If the profanities were at the same magnitude as Sausage Party, for instance, then, I'd have doubts about the film's quality. However, it's not that frequent.

One last point that I'd like to make is that this film takes place in Canada, and I'm quite fond of my country. I found it quite nice to learn some facts about my nation. To my knowledge, there aren't all that many films that take place in Canada, and who also provide some factual information about this great nation.

All in all, this is a memorable film that I will recommend that I watch with my sister, when she comes to visit.

Though animated, not for young children.

[foo_lobsta · 5/10 · 5 February 2016]

I was intrigued by the synopsis of this movie and the animation reminded me of all the Don Bluth movies I watched as kid like Secret of Nimh and the American Tail films. It was mysterious and interesting enough to hold my 6, 9, and 10 year-olds, but I should have known things were going to get gritty after the first "damn" reference in the first 5 minutes. I hung in there with my kids until one of my kids finally complained about the language and I knew I had made the wrong choice. I wished there had been more kid- friendly reviews when I was researching this and I actually created an IMDb account just so I could edit the Parental Guide and help some other parents make a more informed decision than I did. It's sad when you have great voice talents and an interesting story ruined by language that should not be in an animated movie. Mind you Netflix had this rated for ages 7-10. I will be more cautious about their guidance in the future. If not, for the unnecessary language, I would have made it through more than half of it.

Two stars for the illustrating, otherwise it'd be zero.

[chevdo · 2/10 · 16 October 2020]

This film is such a bizarre combination of dullness, pirate trivia and disturbing plot elements that I found myself compelled to watch it to the end in order to review it. At the beginning of the film some pirates in the early 1700s make their way to a small coastal town in Nova Scotia, Canada, in order to bury some treasure underneath a sea-side manor (ie large house). Eventually the title of the movie appears on the screen and we're catapulted into present-day Nova Scotia. Oh wait, no, it's not present day it's 1952. This kind of era-shopping allows the author (this is an adaption of a novel) to revel in all kinds of political incorrectness, such as harassing women with painfully tired misogynist tropes.

Anyway, so what happens is, an old guy who was on the pirate ship in 1717 at the beginning of the movie shows up in a much smaller boat in 1952, just after we see a kid, Jim, get bullied at school by another kid who likes to sick his dog on Jim (the dog's name, by the way, is Grendel, because everyone in this story is highly educated with classic literature, unlike, well just about everyone in the real Nova Scotia of 1952). Jim sees the boat struggling in a storm from his window at the big house on the rocks which is now a quaint Inn where Jim lives with his mother, and Jim incredulously proclaims to his mother that a pirate is at the helm, even though the sea is rough and he has no binoculars. The old guy ties his boat off with help from Jim and immediately after the old guy enters the Inn, 'Immigration', who must've been tracking the guy by radar since 1717, arrives to tell him to stay in the Inn and not go anywhere while some kind of immigration paper work gets sent to Halifax. Why they think he is a foreigner in the first place is not explored, even though it's far more likely he's some old cod-catching codger from another village up or down the coast. The immigration guy leaves without even asking the old guy for ID of any kind, but don't worry, he'll be back later with a partner.

Now, Jim just happens to be writing an essay on pirates for school, so it's a good thing this old man who seems to know everything about pirates showed up. He starts telling the kid various stuff about pirates, ultimately explaining that pirates are like modern day capitalists, who are bad. But pirates were good. Even though they're like bad capitalists. One such bad capitalist happens to live nearby and has designs on purchasing the Inn and developing it into a 'resort hotel'. Never mind that this is Nova Scotia in 1952 and nobody in their right mind would be investing in anything but a fish processing plant, and that this guy would be heralded a hero by the entire town for wanting to develop, he's a bad guy anyway because the old man noticed suspicious boat-traffic at his waterfront warehouse. Someone even tells Jim that the local bad guy has a fancy new car that is "the only one of it's kind in Canada". How anyone would know that is anyone's guess, but later Jim insists that he knows it's true when Jim's policeman uncle teams up with him to pull a weird stunt to entrap the bad capitalist guy. You see Jim's mother, who owns the Inn apparently owes the capitalist a considerable amount of money, because he lent her money to keep the Inn afloat. But he didn't do that because he's a nice guy, he did that so that he can eventually somehow "extort" Jim's mother into handing over ownership of the Inn. If his intention was not to help Jim's mother keep the Inn going, rather than giving her a loan, he could've just let the Inn fail and then buy it, at a distressed, lower rate, and take ownership much sooner than he would if he had to wait to buy out the mother's share by calling due the loan.

After lighting a fire with his breath and telling the Inn maiden that the devil helped him do it, the old guy takes Jim on an astral journey through the satanic fire (I'm not kidding!) to a pirate ship in 1720. They wander around on the ship, and Jim sees a rat and goes "eek" which a pirate almost hears, uh oh! During this aside, the old guy turns pop-philosopher by telling Jim such deep gems as: "Life is full of decisions, try to make good ones", and his favorite maxim, which he repeats frequently: "What is, is", which is apparently the 1700s version of everyone's favorite 21st century meaningless tautology: "It is what it is". He also explains that pirates had 'one of the first democracies', failing to credit any Greeks from thousands of years prior. It's clear by this point that the old guy is a major pirate apologist.

The old guy decides he needs to move a trunk off his boat so that customs won't see it, but Jim objects because that would be breaking the law since the immigration guy said not to take anything off the boat. The old guy says it's OK, those rules apply to smugglers, not him, even though hiding the trunk off the boat to keep customs from seeing it is the very definition of smuggling. Jim agrees only if the old guy shows him what is in the trunk. The old guy obliges and opens the trunk which has some scrolls in it one of which is shown to be a Shakespeare folio, so it makes sense that he would want to hide the trunk off the boat - he's smuggling antique literature that must be worth a fortune! Most prominently placed in the trunk is a very old book with the title "History of Pirates". While this story is fiction, that book actually exists. Except it's called 'A General History of the Pyrates'. I guess the author of this adaptation, as much of a pirate apologist as his protagonist, did not want to portray his pirate heroes as antiquated spellers since his modern audience would likely assume pirates just can't spell because they're illiterate but that wouldn't square with the ridiculously shoe-horned portrayal of pirates as being highly principled swashbuckling gents. The book was written by a Charles Johnson, which is thought in real-life to have been a pseudonym of a non-pirate writer in Britain. But as soon as Jim sees the book in the trunk he exclaims "You're the Captain Johnson!" The old man doesn't disagree, so from here on out I'll call him Johnson. For some reason Jim didn't say, "You're William Shakespeare!" when the Shakespeare folio was shown in the trunk before the pirate book.

So Johnson and Jim set out to bust the Capitalist, whom Johnson has decided has made his fortune by smuggling stuff into his waterfront warehouse. How are they going to do this? Well, by doing what pirates would do, which Johnson says is "attack him before he attacks us". The attack consists of Jim flattening one of the tires on the Capitalist's car so he can't escape when Jim's policeman uncle and the customs officials (who were previously immigration officials, I guess officials did a lot of double-duty in 1952 Nova Scotia) show up to bust him. After puncturing the tire, Jim sips from a straw in a disposable cup with a plastic lid, something I very much doubt would be in existence in a sleepy Nova Scotia town in 1952. If the Capitalist develops the area into a seaside resort, then sure, disposable cups all around. But before?? I don't think so. And so we come to the most laughable plot-hole of all, even though it almost seems like it could happen in 1952's Nova Scotia: The Capitalist is busted for smuggling, and the cop announces that because he is a smuggler that's proof he must be trying to 'extort' the Inn owners (by having the audacity to call his loan to them due), so he's going to prison for a long time.

YAY everyone is happy, oh except Jim who still has a bully and his dog to deal with. The bully appears and Jim, who apparently needed all the banal proclamations about life from Johnson in order to muster the courage to stick up for himself, refuses to back down. The bully asks Jim what he's going to do, and Jim delivers what is both the most hilarious and bizarrely disturbing line of the movie: "I'm going to kill your dog" The dog, Grendel, is of course the only innocent party in this sad mess of a story, but according to the twisted morality of this animated world, Jim is justified in threatening to kill the dog. And so far we've seen no indication that pirates were known for bluffing threats of violence.

The only good thing in this production is some of the background artwork and a few of the animation scenes. Most of the animation is bare-budget stuff but the background stills are actually quite detailed. I can't imagine what it would be like being an animator spending hours upon hours drawing for this awful story.

In any case, the moral of the story seems to be that smugglers and bankers are much worse than pirates. In one of their astral journeys to a pirate ship, Jim and Johnson look on sympathetically as a pirate captain laments, right before attacking a cargo ship, that he certainly hopes there won't be any bloodshed, all the pirates want is the cargo. What a bunch of swell guys those old pirates were, although they will probably have to shed blood to get their booty, they'd rather not, unlike the present-day smuggler capitalist who actually wants to develop the area into something more than rocky crag that smells of rotting fish 24/7, and who wouldn't have to worry about shedding any blood to do that.

UPDATE: I want to stipulate that I am the furthest from a sympathizer of capitalism as may be possible, but this movie made me root for capitalism like no other has! In my review I originally accused it of using piracy to introduce socialism to pirate fans, but I now realize that is quite a reach. I think that the author was just an old capitalism-wary hippy with some strange ideas about real-estate contracts, who wanted to write the book to romanticize pirates as he reminisced over having read Treasure Island as a kid, an experience that must've had a great impact him at the time, when life was more carefree, before he had developed his rudimentary political views.

Shiver me timbers - this Pirate film be arrrr'ful! Walk the plank! Yo ho ho!

[RussHog · 3/10 · 5 June 2018]

This movie started off with a lot of promise. The animation is lovely at times. But the movie is really really dreadfully slow. It's just this old guy who kinda has these whimsical comments to this kid - and I guess they sorta go back in time or something and see some pirate stuff? Mostly the film is a close up of the Donald Sutherland character. Then there is this business tycoon is like a real life pirate but he's not a pirate he's just some guy? I dunno. I fell asleep.