Rented this over and over as a kid and had to buy it. Love the cheesy story of a romantic feminist!

First and foremost, yes. This is not my taste in movies, keeping that in mind however my complaints that I'll list would be said whether it was my taste or not. I saw this movie today because my brother hailed it as one of the worst, period. In my opinion despite the fact I think it's bad it's not worst movie ever made material.The plot is that Maybelle is at a Pirate-themed... thing it's never really explained and she meets a man who is never given a name and yet he begins to fall in love with her and when he invites her to do some kind of scuba diving but other girls go instead and leaves Maybelle to go in her own boat to find them but is swept ashore.In her dream a pirate ship run by the Pirate King does whatever Pirates do and a man named Fredrick decides to leave. Meanwhile Maybelle is the youngest of her family, fathered by a Major General and one thing leads to another and it's contrived love at first sight for Maybelle and Fredrick... They don't even exchange a line of dialogue. Then the pirates arrive... fort some reason and they find out that Maybelle's father is a major General. Then we find out that the pirates stole the family fortune and it's up to Maybelle and Fredrick to find out where it is by... Going aboard the Pirate King's ship and get him to flex his back.Then after they find it and the pirates somehow know they've stolen it and go back and fight them for it, twice. The first time we find out that Fredrick was born on a leap year and therefore only 5 years old and thus indebted to the pirate King. Then they come back to fight again. Then there's the ending... Maybelle then uses the power of her dream to give her a happy ending out of complete nowhere and then she wakes up on shore to get married to Fredrick/that guy at the beginning and they barely know each other.Okay I get that there are real life character parallels to Maybelle's real life and her dream, the problem is that we are never given enough time to know any of the characters in the real world. If I were to compare it to The Wizard Of Oz movie, in that one we are given time to know the characters and we know why in Oz Dorothy chooses them to be the real life parallels. In this movie you can just as easily put Paul Hogan as The Pirate King and it would make just about as much sense.Then there are the songs. It's not that I didn't like any of them... although that certainly doesn't help, but how many times they burst out into song is insane. Things that should take up just a few seconds of dialogue take up almost 5 minutes of song time. Not to mention that most of them look like cheap music videos from the 70's.Then there are the jokes... If you can call them that. Seriously, the jokes are horrible. There's a Star Wars reference and when the Pirate King asks Fredrick how he used the Force and turned his sword into a lightsaber his response was that he "saw it in a movie once"... There wasn't any other delivery just "I saw it in a movie once." I know that was meant to be funny but it isn't.This movie in my opinion is awful. I would only recommend it to a combination of Gilbert and Sullivan fans and people who go nostalgic over anything from the 80's (preferably both). However this movie is really dated and the jokes don't really work and there are too many songs. If you are one of the people who I mentioned might like this movie then I would suggest to check it out. If you aren't a Gilbert and Sullivan fan nor someone who goes nostalgic over anything 80's then you would most certainly not like this movie.

VERY loose send up of Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance".Mabel (Kristy McNicol) falls in love with ex-pirate Frederic (Christopher Atkins). They want to marry but Frederic's pirate friends plan to attack Mabel and her family. Will Frederic side with his old pirate friends or protect Mabel and her family?No doubt about it--this is a BAD movie. The story rambles all over the place and it's full of groan-inducing jokes...but I loved it! Yeah the jokes are terrible but the whole cast is full of life and energy and pull them off. Also there are some good jokes (McNichol's asides to the audience are VERY funny) and the scenery was beautiful. The songs vary. Some are the original G&S songs with new lyrics (which will have purists cringing in horror). There's also some forgettable but pleasant 80s love songs (with hysterically bad love montages). Then there are the send ups of the 1970s and 1980s films scattered throughout. There's also some pretty explicit sex humor and plenty of homo erotica-all the pirates are shirtless and muscular and there are even a few gay pirate couples! As you can see this movie is all over the place but it's so much fun that I didn't mind! McNichol is sexy (believe it or not) and very good in her role. Ted Hamilton is excellent as The Priate King. As for Atkins...he was never a good actor but looks great with his shirt off! This was blasted when it came out and was regarded as a ripoff and pathetic. However it's acquired a cult following since then. This is the perfect summer movie for teenage girls and gay boys and men! Dumb but loads of fun. I give it an 8.

I just watched this movie for the first time in probably 24 years but for about the thousandth time.Like the other people that remember this movie my dad would hire this on beta cassette and we would watch it over and over. Every time we would go down to the video store to grab something we would always bug our parents to grab this movie too. The movie has been etched into our very imagination and now leaves me with such a fulfilling sense of nostalgia.I would not expect people that didn't grow up watching this to see it and feel the same way about it now that's for sure. I have to say most of the movies that come out today are terrible in my opinion, but there is probably a few here and there that some kids will watch over and over which leads them on to having such a fond memory for it as I do with this one.The thing I don't get is the people that have bagged out the movie because they only just saw it. What is the point in reviewing a movie that was obviously made before their time? I wouldn't watch a movie that was made in the 60s or 70s and feel the need to talk about the movies technical faults, this day and age? Yeah sure, we have a certain level of expectation for movies made now days cause the bar is always getting set higher and higher.The Pirate Movie never takes itself seriously, it is purely light hearted fun and for those of us lucky enough to spend the best days of our life watching it time after time, we will say that this is one of the best movies ever made and we do so for all the right reasons.When I eventually have children I would love watch it with them and watch them enjoying it as much as I did. Definitely a happy ending every time.