The Sea Beast: Film Summary And Reviews

The Sea Beast: Film Summary And Reviews

The robust family adventure “The Sea Beast,” appearing today on Netflix, is one of the biggest movie surprises of the year so far. Fun, smart, and sneakily deep, it has elements that will be familiar to families around the world. There’s a little bit of “Moana,” a backdrop of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” a thread of “How to Train Your Dragon,” and even a few nods to Kaiju movies in this rollicking animated movie that features some actual filmmaking instead of just bright colors to hold the attention of little kids.

Although the action sequences have been meticulously planned and executed, the script will slyly introduce issues that are worth talking about with the youngsters once the film is finished. It’s good to see a family-friendly fantasy movie that doesn’t talk down to children, even though the idea of “you may be a hero and still be wrong” isn’t exactly a new one in adventure fiction. The animated films that have endured throughout history put their faith in kids to follow complicated ideas and narratives. That kind of trust is wonderful to see emerging in a movie that never forgets to be enjoyable as well.

Chris Williams (who co-directed “Big Hero 6” and “Moana”) makes his confident solo debut with a script he co-wrote with Nell Benjamin that subverts classic seafaring adventure mythology. After a brief prologue that introduces us to Maisie (Zaris-Angel Hator) as she flees her orphanage in search of greater adventure, Williams and his team stage an impressive battle at sea between two monster-hunting ships and a massive beast. Immediately, there’s a sense that the craftsmanship here is high as the sequence unfolds with the swooping tentacles of a Kraken-esque beast and the ships trying to defeat it. “The Sea Beast” takes place in the middle of a great war between monsters and men, the latter funded by a King (Jim Carter) and Queen (Doon Mackichan) who clearly don’t mind putting people in harm’s way but would never risk their own safety.

Jacob Holland, played by Karl Urban, finds a nice sense of vulnerability in his portrayal of the other hero in this tall tale. Jacob Holland was raised on the Inevitable, a hunting ship captained by the ruthless Captain Crow (Jared Harris). The Ahab of this story, Crow stands for the old-school hunter—someone who has been at it for so long that he is fixated on finding the thing that stole his eye at any cost. Everything changes when Maisie sneaks aboard their ship to join them in their hunt for the red-giant sea monster known as the Bluster. Maisie and Jacob learn via a sequence of exciting occurrences that all they had been told about the conflict between humans and monsters had been a myth.

Fair enough, “The Sea Beast” takes a little too long to get going, but there’s a shorter, 100-minute version of this movie that’s available. There were a few spots I wished to tighten it up, and I do wish the world-building was a little more robust. Even while it’s reasonable if all the time and resources were devoted to the gorgeously portrayed creatures, some of the settings feel poorly conceived.

I was most impressed by the narrative of “The Sea Beast,” which combines those aforementioned clear influences into something unexpectedly adventurous, which is uncommon these days in American animation. Being a monster-hunting film with an anti-violence message, this movie takes narrative risks. It is the sort of thing that excellent parents search for since it amuses children and sparks discourse. And it’s encouraging news that Netflix might start to exert more influence over original animation. if they’re willing to produce films with the same financial success as “The Sea Beast.”