Yellowbeard takes on pirate movies with all the grace of a cannonball barreling through a window. It’s loud, graceless, and mostly debris. It has scenes that barely hold together, even taken individually as skits, but taken all together, the pacing keels over like a boozy swab. Occasionally there are punchlines, but if they even remember to have one, they always seem to stumble in the wrong direction. And yet—look at the cast. It’s stacked to the rafters with dozens of comic (and otherwise) legends. Half the fun is spotting who drifts onscreen next. The pity is they’re all trapped on the same sinking ship.
Graham Chapman plays Yellowbeard, a frothing pirate who breaks out of prison and immediately sets his one good eye on the treasure he buried years ago. The Royal Navy gives chase—when the movie remembers. Mostly it staggers, like a boozy swab, from one scene to the next. It forgets its own plot as often as it forgets its punchlines, and idle randomness reigns supreme.
But there are moments that stick with me. My favorite bit: James Mason as an oblivious captain. He’s convinced—by “science”—that women bring bad luck at sea. And yet he puts absolute trust in his second mate, “Mr. Prostitute,” a woman clad in a dime-store mustache. There are also some funny scenes with Tommy Chong mincing around as a lisping aristocrat—at one point begging Cheech to smash his head into walls. John Cleese plays a blind man who loudly denies his blindness. And maybe the best cameo of them all is David Bowie, swooping in with a shark fin strapped to his back, and yet is cooler than anyone else on deck.
I won’t deny Yellowbeard has energy. It’s just pointed in every direction but very rarely the right one. It wants to be Holy Grail with boats and ends up as flotsam—bits of sketches glued together with slapstick and sea shanties. If you’re just curious, fine. Watch it. But if you’re expecting rhythm or payoff, steer off. Way off.