In the Heart of the Sea

The life of a sailor has been romanticized countless times in novel and cinema, and I just don't get it. "In the Heart of the Sea" is painfully cliche at times, and although the film captures the mystery, beauty, and peril of the sea, it remains a mostly hollow and glorified epic seafaring journey.

Captain Pollard (Benjamin Walker) and First Mate Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) are whalers in Nantucket in the early 1800's. The setting is delivered beautifully, and the town's excitement over the lucrative oil found in whales has inspired a dangerous industry that has consumed every facet of their lives. Then they go off to sea. Pollard and Chase have their disagreements, but it's no Mutiny on the Bounty. The rub is that there isn't a compelling dramatic moment or issue that would create this tension in the first place, and it just doesn't go anywhere useful. Enter Moby. A massive homicidal whale makes the predators the prey and hunts them halfway around the world, leaving carnage in its wake. The effects given to the whale scenes are fantastic, don't get me wrong, but Moby certainly isn't Jaws. The film deserved more tension, more suspense, and more action.

Director Ron Howard is overrated. There, I've said it. It's difficult to fight this fact, as much as you may want to. If you look at his filmography, there are just four high quality films over his thirty-eight film, forty-six year directorial career. Email me and I'll fill you in on the goods. There are some other ones that are fun and all, but he has made his name on just a couple of strong efforts. If I spent nearly sixty years working in Hollywood, I could direct award-winning films without a doubt. "In the Heart of the Sea" has some nice special effects, and we all know that filming on water has its challenges, but the film could have used something a bit more, I don't know, magical from Opie.

Chris Hemsworth just seemed to be the wrong choice for lead. There are attempts to mask his British accent, and even some discernible moments of a New England accent. It comes off as entirely insincere. Ben Whishaw and Brendan Gleeson as Herman Melville and Thomas Nickerson, respectively, are the bright spots of the film as a pair of raconteurs telling fish stories over whiskey in a room filled with ships in bottles. And when that's the bright spot, you're sort of in trouble.

Moby Dick is a timeless tale, but this variation is just unnecessary. It makes me cringe to see previews for these great (and some not-so-great) stories being retold over and over as if that's more important or spectacular than original ideas. Thinking about the upcoming "Point Break", "The BFG", "The Jungle Book", "Ben Hur", "The Magnificent Seven", "Jumanji", and "Tarzan" is just too much new old movies. Okay, I won't lie, "The Magnificent Seven" will be pretty cool.

The film seems starkly out of place. It was originally intended for a spring release, but that was encroaching on the impending blockbusters, and In the Heart of the Sea is too serious and wistful for that movie-going audience. Perhaps there was an awards-savvy audience in mind when it was pushed to October, targeting those hungry for yet another retelling of a time-honored legend. With biopics all the rage, isn't it a more meta-cognitive approach to make a movie about the story that was told by the man who sailed on the ship that inspired the book for the author. I got lost in my own sentence. Suffice to say, it is not clever. The studio chose to push it yet again to early December. The doldrums between the Thanksgiving feast and the Christmas frenzy. My point is, the film just doesn't fit anywhere. With a more compelling story arc, and perhaps stronger characters, it might have been stronger with any particular audience, but it was simply bland. It's a whale of a tale, but stick with the Melville classic. 5/10.