So it was a few months ago when we sat down to watch BEE MOVIE with the little one and before the flick there were previews for several movies, including The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything - A Veggie Tales Movie.  Leaning over to the 2 1/2 year old, I asked, "So do you want to see that movie, too?" And at that moment, I could have saved myself 85 minutes of kid flick if I had just listened and took her at his word.

But it was one of those Saturdays when daddy was in charge of the kid so with the G-rated film as an option I conveniently forgot what she had said and asked again if she would like to see a movie.  Little kids' memories being what they are, this time she said "Yes. Can I have popcorn?"

So we bundled up and headed for the multi plex for the first showing.

Pirates is the story about three Veggies who work as busboys in a dinner theater where the theme is a Pirate of Penzance musical about Pirates who kill sea serpents, and enemies of all sorts and triumph in the end.  These busboys yearn to be in the show but lack the talent. In fact, their audition is so bad they are fired.

As it turns out, at the same time, but 300 years ago, a princess and prince were abducted by pirates and sent their father's golden help finder out into the great wide world to help them. Guess who it finds?

I think that the time warp will be lost on most little kids but that didn't seem to matter much. I am not even sure that it even had to be a part of the story, but what the heck, its a kid movie.

So the three misfits - very timid Elliot (Larry the Cucumber), lazy Sedgewick (Mr. Lunt) and no self-confident George (Pa Grape) end up as the victors in this film, becoming the heroes they want to be. A pretty decent message, with almost enough laughs to keep an adult interested.

This film was not a take off of the Pirates of the Caribbean series,

Phil Vischer completed the script for this film in 2002, before Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) was released. But because of the bankruptcy and buyout of Big Idea Productions, the film wasn't able to start production until late 2005. It's a good thing, too, or the villain would have probably ended up like Jack Sparrow.

By the time you get around to seeing this film, it will be on video or on cable.  It's a little scary but even the 2 1/2 year old ("its 32 months, daddy") was riveted.