Time Pirates (2022)
5/10
A fun teen movie
15 September 2022
Warning: Spoilers
I went into this movie totally blind with no idea that the band - SM6 - in it was an actual real band. Originally known as Smart Monkeys, they're an entire family - George, Isabel, Adam, Emily, Eliana, and Jack Jones - from Geneva, Illinois. They've built their name over TikTok, which is probably why I had no idea who they were and if you told me they were from Geneva, Switzerland, I would have believed that as I got strong Dollydots vibes from this movie.

In case you don't know them, they were an unknown in the U. S. yet loved in the Netherlands band that starred in the Cannon film Dutch Treat.

So now that I've established who SM6 are, it's time to discuss the movie they made. Better than you learning halfway through the movie why this band sounds so good like me.

Time Pirates is a Tubi Original in which the band plays themselves. Yet we don't see them right away. Instead, it begins with Captain Cooper (Jack Pearson) battling the dreaded Blackbeard (Richard Grieco, which when you think about it, is an inspired bit of Pirates of the Caribbean meta casting). As Blackbeard reads the tattoo on Cooper's arm in the middle of a swordfight, they're claimed by magical waves.

That's when I realized that this was an Asylum film, as that level - this is not a compliment - of special effects can't be mistaken. This was directed by Anthony C. Ferrante, who directed all of the Sharknado films, and written by Marc Gottlieb (Planet of the Sharks, Jungle Run, Top Gunner: Danger Zone - which is an incredible exploitation mockbuster movie name).

Years later, in modern Los Angeles, Cooper's ship the Red Queen is a tourist attraction in Los Angeles and the setting for SM6's new music video. When the band finds the treasure map and turns it into new lyrics for a song, it ends up sending them into the past, where they must find Blackbeard and get back to 2022.

To do that, they must find famous female pirates Anne Bonny (Angela Cola) and Beckett (Anna Telfer, who was in Planet Dune and Aquarium of the Dead) and, of course, single multiple songs and get a magic spell from The Crone (Dee Wallace!).

Maybe because I watched this at 2 in the morning I had more youthful joy in my heart as I really liked the pop energy of the songs. Is it what I would listen to? No, but you know, the fact that people are still making movies around bands makes me happy. It's bubblegum goofiness, but it made me laugh a few times - mainly at the bad looking effects - and it's an interesting way to promote SM6.
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