The Sea Beast (2022)

Director: Chris Williams

Cast: Karl Urban, Zaris-Angel Hator, Jared Harris, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Kathy Burke

Review

The sea beast is a family comedy, adventure, and action movie. It is a Netflix animation that tells the story of a young girl Maise Brumble (Zaris-Angel Hator) who stows away on ‘The Inevitable’, a legendary monster hunting ship, only to find out the Ship is heading out into uncharted waters to kill a dreaded sea creature – the Red Bluster.

The movie occurred around the 17/18th century when sea monsters threatened villages and towns. Certain brave men offered to take on the job of hunting down these sea monsters. The escapades of these ‘brave men’ are documented in books for children to read. Maise Brumble, a spirited orphan, grows up aspiring to become a monster hunter after seeing the heroic exploits of the hunters in various books she read.

Due to this aspiration, she stowed away to ‘The Inevitable’ led by Captain Crow (Jared Harris). One of the hunters whom Captain Crow rescued and adopted as a son, Jacob Holland (Karl Urban), finds her and decides to drop her off, but the Captain prevents him. Unable to drop her offshore, she joins the hunters in their quest to kill the red bluster.

I commend the Director for this movie. The sea beast is a great movie for adults and youngsters. It teaches a lot of life lessons, and it is very relatable. It is important to note that, the Director – Chris Williams, directed “Bolt” and co-directed movies like “Big Hero 6” and “Moana.”

The animation was excellent; the physics of the ocean and ships were impressive, with good character and monster designs and a finely realistic depiction of the landscape. The waves and spray of the ocean look like they are from a documentary, the Ship’s swaying looks truly forceful, and the town’s destruction is full of debris and dust. All these gives the entire film an immersive feeling and makes us truly appreciate how powerful the forces of nature are.

The plot shares common ideas with ‘Moana’, but it does a beautiful job refining these ideas to give it its unique spin. The plot, which involves a multi-generational feud between the worlds of man and monsters, will undoubtedly draw comparisons to some other animated movies like “How to Train your Dragon“. Still, the film does an excellent job of making this story about the cost of hatred based on lies, which is a valuable lesson to not only children but adults about questioning the source of those who want you to be afraid of something.

I liked the fact that there was no unnecessary dialogue between characters. Each conversation had a purpose, and was fun. For some part of the film, it is just bickering between Jacob and the Maise, which showed off their personalities and was never annoying. Every character in this film has such a distinctive personality that it’s like we know them in real life.

Though I am full of praise for this work, I felt some parts of the movie seemed underdeveloped in strange ways. For example, the agreement Captain Crow makes with a dubious figure Gwen Batterbie (Kathy Burke). And also the fact that the plot is not particularly creative. The characters and general scheme of this movie reminded me of ‘How to Train Your Dragon’.

I would recommend this movie to anyone.