The true story that reportedly served as inspiration for Melville‘s Moby Dick, In the Heart of the Sea stars Thor’s magically disappearing abs and future Spiderman. Also featuring Scarecrow and the Gleeson not in Star Wars.
In search of a first-hand account of a legendary whaling story, Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) has sought out Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), the last living survivor of the whaling ship Essex. What unfolds over many a sip of alcohol and a long night is a tale of two men, a boy, and a whale.
Tom Holland portrays a young Thomas, the cabin boy of the Essex. Hemsworth is Owen Chase, the First Mate – begrudgingly ceding the authority of Captain to silver-spooned George Pollard, Jr. (Benjamin Walker). Cillian Murphy is Second Mate, but is really not important to this story – I honestly couldn’t tell you his fate, or at what point he disappeared from the story, which is a shame since Cillian Murphy needs to be in more films.
The story plays out similarly to the well known Melville story – or at least I imagine it does since, like many of you I would venture, I never really made it past “Call me Ishmael,” of the non-abridged version and my memory of the watered down young adult edit is foggy. The great white whale responsible for sinking ships and terrifying sailors is there, and the captain with issues is there, but neither really has much to do with the other, interestingly enough. I guess Melville’s version is one of those “inspired by actual events” stories that doesn’t feel the need to stick to reality too closely.
This is a man against nature and man against man story, but sadly neither is terribly evocative. The sea is an over dramatic character all to herself, hamming it up a little too often, with music to back her up. We’re obviously supposed to be rooting for Chase, but he’s not all that compelling of a character. Captain Pollard is a bit of an unlikable fellow, but not so much that we hate him as a villain. There wasn’t much chemistry between the two and I mostly found myself rooting for the whales.
Cinematically this film is confusing. Shown in 3D, it often moves too quickly to be seen clearly as ropes coil, sails billow, waves crash, and decks sway. At other times it is a thing of beauty, giving us a small taste of what James Cameron might have in store for us when he visits the oceans of Pandora whenever he gets around to making those three Avatar sequels.
Hemsworth clearly threw himself into this role with earnest, competing with Christian Bale for transforming between starving and superhero. You can feel his earnestness wafting off him in dramatic fashion, but it is offset by his confusing accent. It ranges wildly anywhere from his actual Australian cadence, to modern American, to half British. Occasionally he sounds like maybe he was from 1820’s Nantucket, which is what he was supposed to be going for.
There has obviously been care taken to provide an authentic feeling whaling experience, which I appreciate. Parts are fascinating and others disturbing. That’s probably the best thing about this film. Other parts of the movie are supposed to be gripping or shocking, but it’s fairly obvious where things are going most of the time so it doesn’t make the impact intended.
There is an awful lot about this movie that could have gone incredibly right and turned it into a modern masterpiece of throwback cinema, but too much landed with something like a thud. It’s not so much that there’s something terribely bad about this movie, it’s just that there isn’t a whole lot good either. To steal the puntastic description by a fellow DC critic, it’s “under-whale-ming,” a rather average piece of work wrapped in an epic looking shell of large seas, large whales, and large intentions.
Mrs. Hamster did not screen this film
My rating: Three out of five hats
Trailer:
In the Heart of the Sea splashes into 3,103 theaters, in 2D and 3D, December 11
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