The Sea Beast - Movie Review

Critics Score - 7 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

Kids Score - 7 of 10

When it comes to kids movies, getting and holding a child’s interest is not an easy task. As a father of a seven year old with ADHD and a ten year old with autism, unless they’re already familiar with the characters on the screen from the opening scene, getting them to stick around for a full length feature film can be quite a challenge. The new digitally animated film from Netflix, The Sea Beast, as an independent IP, with children not being familiar with any of the characters or story, is up against it from the opening scene. Fortunately for my viewing experience, this film was up to the challenge, with a great sense of pirate ship sailing, animated sea monsters attacking, swashbuckling adventures to be had right out of the gate. The opening had me harkening back to the beginning of The Little Mermaid and the song Fathoms Below or how the opening of Frozen with the Frozen Heart number alluded to the mystery, adventure and fun that was to come. While the film sets sail with plenty of promise and wind in it’s sails, it falters a bit towards the finale and ends up  missing the boat a bit in terms of carrying the momentum through to the finish. While some of the storylines also get a bit lost at Sea, the wonderful sense of adventure this film evokes makes this Beast a good time for most everyone, young and old.

SYNOPSIS - Our adventure begins at night with a boy coming up out of the water in the open ocean, he clings to some boards and looks over at the ship he was on that’s engulfed in flames. The camera bobs up and down in the water, making us privy to the sinking ship as it’s being swallowed by the night sea. We then watch overhead as a beast of unspeakable size swims underneath the youngster trapped on a few pieces of wood from the wreckage. We then hear a little girl speaking, the precocious and adventurous Maisie (Zaris Angel-Hator) as she’s reading a book about the hunters and how they fight the good fight against the monsters that attack humans from the watery depths. But she’s interrupted by the orphanage’s keeper telling her it’s lights out and that she better not try and escape again. But no sooner has she left than Maisie pushes a dresser against the wall, bounds on top of it, perches herself in a window and tells the other children to “live a great life and die a great death”, before climbing down a drain pipe and escaping. My seven year wasn’t too fond of those comments. She’s headed through the woods and as the camera pans up we see the expanse of the open ocean come into view as The Sea Beast title appears.

We’re then transported to a ship called The Inevitable out on the high seas as the young boy Jacob (voiced by Karl Urban) has grown up to become a strapping up-and-coming captain that hunts the oceans monsters with a crew of miscreants. They’re on the hunt for a monstrous red beast that took Captain Crow (Jared Harris), the actual captain’s eye, thirty years ago. But they’re waylaid when another ship comes under attack and they must heed “the code” to come to it’s rescue. These voice performances are all very good, it’s nice to hear the wonderful Karl Urban getting some work again but it’s the rambunctiousness that Zaris Angel-Hator brings to the Maisie character that steals the show. After firing a flare to get the aquatic beast called a Brickleback to follow them, a man vs creature fight ensues that harkens back to the man vs shark fight in Jaws. The Brickleback is a football field long green alligator creature with a dragon-plated back, but instead of arms and legs it has fins and along it’s underbelly it also has some squid-like tentacles it can use to reach into the ship. The cgi design of the beasts and creatures is terrific, the animation really impresses the scale and size of the monsters, which sells the David vs Goliath scenarios that play out. As they fight the creature, Captain Crow makes statements like “clever fish” and “it’s below us” which were very reminiscent of Quint’s comments “he is a smart big fish” and “he’s gone under the boat”, again bringing me back to the days of Jaws. They even spear the beast with a buoy as it’s diving under the ship, allowing them to visually track the creature from above the water, which I believe I’ve only ever seen in Jaws, but gave the fight the same compelling adventure vibes that Spielberg’s film evoked many decades ago. But as the film continues, Maisie and Jacob meet up, meet a little blue tadpole monster that makes the cute sidekick cat Sox from the Lightyear movie look like a facehugger from Alien. Without divulging too many more of the plot details, the pair end up in search of the sea beast called “Red” that’s the focal point of the marketing materials, but they find out not all is as it seems, not only in regards the monster, but also the things they’ve heard and been taught by the powers that be.

As I mentioned previously, I most found of the cgi to be impressive work. One shot in particular of Red, after smashing a ship in half and looking down through the smoking wreckage, was some simply stunning animation. While the details of the ships, ocean, water and beasts all look great, some of the human characters are so simply rendered, they fail to impress when the focus of what’s on screen. I began to notice early in the film the human characters didn’t have nearly as much detail as the rest of the film but then Jacob takes off his shirt and it really hit home that these humans look like Barbie and Ken dolls with little in the way of facial and bodily detail. Narratively The Sea Beast follows many the same emotional beats as How To Train Your Dragon. It changes direction in the third act, possibly because it got lost, but it does offer some interesting lessons about what exactly is truth and then comments on lies promoted by a government to create or sell war to the general public. A fascinatingly timely narrative. The one Captain Crow Irish jig song is a jolly little tune but the music overall, while good, doesn’t come anywhere near most of the other Disney adventure films like Moana or Frozen. There are also a couple unresolved plot points, Captain Crow is told very ominously by a witch that he’d have to give up everything in order to use the special weapon she had built. Did everything mean his life? His soul? *Spoiler alert* Cause he didn’t really lose much by the finale other than his career, (which he was about to retire from anyway), and maybe some pride. Otherwise a very anticlimactic ending for that character. The ending in general was also a bit rough, it’s as if the film wasn’t sure what to do with everyone after the main story lines had been resolved. We’re left with a concluding shot of the main characters sitting on a dock beside a house on the beach, then we see the fin of Red slowly ascending from the ocean before the credits roll. If you thought an animated film could end on anything other than a positive note, I guess that’s on you, but that note was a more confusing than satisfying way to end this voyage.

SUMMARY - This frolicking adventure is enjoyable for all ages but it falters a bit in terms of setting itself apart as the animated film of the year. While it’s clearly inferior to another red beast from Pixar earlier this year, Turning Red, most audiences will still have plenty of fun sailing the high seas with The Sea Beast.