In the Heart of the Sea or that Moby Dick film as I am sure a lot of people will call it. We are told the story in flashback from a man who was really there as the events unfolded.
With a film boasting a very impressive cast, a well regarded director and plenty of big CGI action sequences it leaves you feeling very unsatisfied. Although I don’t know if the fact that this was Cineworld’s Unlmited Secret Screening film aided to that feeling. It was pretty obvious it was going to be this film (which is released on Boxing Day) although I think everyone in the cinema and across the county were hoping it just might be Star Wars.
Anyway, the film opens with a young man visiting an older man and wanting to know the story of the Essex. He resists but is convinced by his wife to eventually tell the story. So from there on we know we are going to get it in flashback form. Luckily it doesn’t have too many breaks in the story to go back to them talking, I guess they were going for how emotionally damaged he still was because it all.
We then get the story told through the eyes of a 17 year old who was on his first journey out to sea. With a Captain born into his role and a reluctant first mate who was not happy to take orders when he had previously been promised to be made Captain. Even before they set sail we just knew it wasn’t going to be plain sailing, oh yes I went there with that joke!
The tensions between all the men on the boat was always going to lead to a downfall and pretty much showing that greed will always take over. After hearing a former captains story about a place where all the whales had gone to, and a killer whale, they decided to take the risk.
I found it strange that they were saying that Moby Dick was based on actual events and a real incident that occurred out a sea as always just thought it as pure fiction. Having done a little bit of research it turns out it was apparently written after accounts, like shown in the film. I actually thought they had just created that for the film, you know a bit like Rose in Titanic!
The CGI with the whale was not bad, I mean it’s more teasing than anything as it’s rare we fully get to see it. Although it likes to splash the water around a lot, I’m guessing that was for the 3D effects. As you may already know I am not a fan of 3D, to make it worse last night the film was slightly off for about five minutes and was extremely blurry, I actually thought it was my glasses and they stopped working but everyone was checking with each other.
My main problem with this film was how all over the place the accents with the characters were couldn’t work out if they were supposed to be English, American or in Hemsworth’s case his native Australian. That might be a very minor thing but it was distracting to begin with. I do enjoy Hemsworth and would like to see him take on some different types of roles and see what he can really do. Whishaw seems to be quite a favorite at the moment, again I enjoy him as well. Obviously we know what we’re going to get with Gleeson as well.
I wouldn’t say rush out and see this one, but I’m guessing in the UK you aren’t going to have much of a choice on Boxing Day.