The Sea Beast Review: Promises A Sparkling Adventure Aboard Ship Complete With Sea Monsters And Fireworks
Cast: Karl Urban, Zaris-Angel Hator, Jared Harris
Director: Chris Williams
Streaming Platform: Netflix (click to watch)
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The Sea Beast is available exclusively on Netflix after having made a few screenings in certain countries, we fully enter the summer mood. Net of the screen size Chris Williams’ new feature film is in all respects a blockbuster, in terms of ambitions and technical invoice. A film of those that were made regularly a few decades ago, and which still tend to peep out from time to time (the director claims to have been inspired by how he felt as a boy seeing the adventures of Indiana Jones in the cinema). And whether it’s in a dark room or on your home screen.
The Sea Beast Review: The Story
The Sea Beast takes place in a slightly different world from ours, where the famous maps with monsters scattered here and there are not an artistic quirk, but the approximate indication of the true location of ferocious creatures capable of annihilating entire fleets. And it is to the pursuit of these animals that Captain Crow and his disciple Jacob Holland welcomed into the crew at an early age after having ended up in the water precisely because of a monster. Crow, the new Ahab, is obsessed with a particular creature, and will not rest until he has captured it, even for a matter of prestige in the eyes of the sovereign. When they leave for the umpteenth expedition, Jacob finds himself having to manage an illegal immigrant on board: Maisie Brumble, an orphan who doesn’t want to know about being with her peers, as she is obsessed with monsters and adventurers. And so, she begins a new journey steeped in dangers…
For years Chris Williams was one of the big names in Walt Disney Animation, having made his debut as a member of the crew in Mulan’s time and then assuming increasingly thick roles, up to signing – with others, as is customary for much of the film industry. American animation – directing films like Bolt – a four-legged hero, Big Hero 6 and Oceania and joining the company’s core group of creatives, giving opinions on others’ projects (and sometimes contributing otherwise: in Frozen and Frozen II – Arendelle’s Secretlends the voice to the dealer Oaken). He then left the major in 2018, to pursue new adventures, and it so happens that the last Disney feature film he worked on – as a scriptwriter – is Raya and the Last Dragon, another fantastic tale with supernatural creatures and a young girl protagonist who tries to understand his place in a world consumed by fear.
The lessons learned over those two decades are evident in his first feature film as a sole director, where narrative ambition – which translates into a simple but psychologically nuanced story – is combined with a simply stunning technical apparatus, in particular for the age-old question of water which has always been a major challenge for those involved in digital animation and here it is an integral part of the creation of a vast and potentially infinite universe, which nevertheless never forgets the heart human (or even non-human) of the operation. A heart that permeates the entire film, making it a great adventure for all ages.
The Sea Beast Review and Analysis
In the opening suspense scene, Chris Williams breaks the usual film canons and deceives the viewer, because only in appearance does it represents an anticipation of what will happen to the protagonist; in fact, it is the only segment of the feature film unrelated to the narrative, created ad hoc to guide the perception of the public from the very first frames. The Sea Beast is set in an age when terrifying creatures sail the seas and hinder navigation; hunters aboard large sailing ships – models inspired by those of the eighteenth century – kill these great beasts of the sea and are considered real heroes, among them, is Jacob Holland, a valiant man, a possible successor to Captain Crow who was at the helm of the greatest fighter ship of all time: the Inevitable.
The main female character is 11-year-old Maisie, always full of vitality, who finds herself in a house of hunter orphans. To a small group of other children gathered around her, the girl reads the book “The Adventures of Captain Crow” but wishes, more than anything else, to become a hunter of sea monsters, as were her parents; so, one evening, she runs away from the institution protected by the king and queen. Maisie, who is gifted with cunning, then manages to clandestinely embark on the famous ship and impress with her contagious optimism all the sailors on board, even Captain Crow, who, before passing the baton, is obsessed with one last mission: for thirty years he has been waiting to fight again against the Red Fury, a monster capable of shooting fire from his eyes and moving the sea. For the little newcomer, the images she saw in the books and the written words became reality. But she is destined to accomplish with Jacob something greater than another deadly mission…
The Sea Beast is a well-made film, with a few subtleties scattered here and there, and with multiple ideas (interrupting the circle of violence, learning to forgive others, making a family even where there is no family), which deserves the view. With classic echoes: Moby Dick (if you look at the Captain’s thirst for revenge), The Never-Ending Story (for the eyes lit with astonishment on the back of the beast), King Kong (if you see a free soul in his world, which before forced to fight, then captured and taken in chains across the ocean); and does not disdain quotations, such as the most obvious one of the ” grandiose death “: the great death (Peter Pan). Therefore, the story itself is not the strength of the film, because it is the shooting technique and the look of the animation that makes it a good product.
Williams is rarely satisfied with a frontal and purely descriptive angle of view. The images are in constant motion. Through fast horizontal panoramas, the choices of angles, fields and shooting plans, you rotate, walk, run, and move with the characters but above all the film puts the viewer at the center of the adventure, involving him directly and blocking any attempt to escape from the painting, from the fiction represented. The complete animation with realistic details does its part, each scene is treated in detail thanks to the work of Matthias Lechner, photography, and colors filtered by sunlight that play a fundamental role.
It’s been almost twenty years since Disney, this time in live-action, brought pirates back to the cinema with Jack Sparrow and his Black Pearl, after the negative commercial success of the animated Treasure Planet. And if that vein is now on standby as regards the flesh and blood figures, Williams despite not having signed a pirate film in the strict sense – manages to transpose the same timeless but still very current spirit (there is a subtext very interesting politician) using an animated medium to the nth degree, supported by a gallery of absolutely irresistible characters, be it, humans or creatures, including a very Disney-like supporting actor who shamelessly steals the scene without practically ever opening his mouth. A little big fun like they haven’t seen for a long time.
The Sea Beast Review: The Last Words
The Sea Beast, we can only be struck by the great technical and artistic quality of the new animated film by Netflix, a fun timeless adventure suitable for everyone. The technical component is astounding, especially for the use of water. The story is captivating and nuanced in its simplicity. Here Sony Pictures Imageworks – which through its head of animation Joshua Beveridge makes it is known that the film in question ” was the most complex thing” has done an impeccable job, if you think of the visual effects of the sea, terribly realistic, and, as mentioned, to the emotional expressions, to the sky, more stylized, whose realism was fundamental to represent that vast and open world, never completely known, of which the work is made carrier.
