'In the Heart of the Sea' Review

In the Heart of the Sea Review:

Trouble At Sea

BY IAN TAN

Ron Howard’s latest film tells the story behind the legend of Moby Dick. On one of the Essex’s whaling trips, the ship’s crew experiences an encounter with a giant sperm whale that rips their ship apart, leaving them stranded and left to their own devices for survival. This sounds like quite an epic tale to put on the big screen. Alas, In the Heart of the Sea turns out rather mediocrely.

The movie has all the elements it needs to be a great one – a good cast, a respectable director, a Jaws-like premise and good characters – but it simply doesn’t live up to what all those seem to promise. For one, Moby Dick has about five minutes of screen time in total, and when he does appear, it’s almost underwhelming, and his presence, thematically, feels shallow as well. Although he shipwrecks the crew and severely damages the Essex, I never found him to be too big a threat or something to be truly terrified of.

Eye of The Whale

The ensemble cast, led by Chris Hemsworth, provides fine performances. Tom Holland is especially good in his role as a young 14-year-old sailor, even if the script doesn’t give him very much to do. He’s an actor with great potential (he did great in The Impossible in 2012) and I can’t wait to see him as Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War next year, no matter how small his role may be. Certain character dynamics are interesting, such as Owen Chase (Hemsworth) and George Pollard's (Benjamin Walker) bitter relationship, but could have been explored a little further. The other members of the Essex are played well by their respective actors, but they too could’ve used a bit more character development.

Captain Jack Sparrow?

One thing I feel bad for Hemsworth and the rest of the cast though, is that they really put their all into their roles, loosing dramatic amounts of weight to keep things as real as possible. Unfortunately – and this is the case for Hemsworth especially – it doesn’t really pay off in the final film as their change from being well-fed to being malnourished isn’t too clearly portrayed.

From the visual effects standpoint, the film mostly succeeds. The CGI is serviceable and so is the cinematography. However, the kind of sweeping, epic scope the film tries to go for is never fully realized, and the entire movie feels rather small in scale for a story like Moby Dick. Plus, when the mammoth-sized whale does appear, he doesn’t look as big as some of the posters make him out to be, but maybe I was just expecting too much. Budget cuts got in the way, perhaps. The music by Rogue Baños makes up for some of the film’s visual shortcomings though. In fact, the score really is the best part about this movie. Baños did an admirable job with it.

The god of thunder, now battling killer whales

At the end of the day, In the Heart of the Sea is a mediocre effort by one of Hollywood’s better directors. I was expecting a rousing 3D spectacle of survival and emotion, but was a little letdown. Note: the 3D is mostly unnecessary, save a few cool underwater shots. It’s not a bad movie; there are just other survival movies that do a better job.

Final Verdict

In the Heart of the Sea gets 6 out of 10 stars – Save up your money for Star Wars: The Force Awakens next week.