The Sea Beast Review

Maisie Brumble, the feisty protagonist of Sea Beast , is a little girl with a gigantic personality and off-the-wall sass. At the beginning of the story, she is determined to claim her place in the monster-hunting tradition of her seafaring country; by the time she finishes, she has turned that tradition on its head, in ways that are not only incisive and profound, but deeply moving. Chris Williams, whose directorial credits include Big Hero 6 and Vaiana, has made a fantastic-looking and moving film, one whose emotional undercurrents are made all the more potent by being downplayed amidst the stunts.

The frenetic hustle and bustle of the opening sequences might suggest we're being drawn into familiar, action-packed animation territory. To be sure, there's plenty of hefty action, battles and whatnot, in Sea Beast , along with leavening touches of the sweet and the lovable. But as Maisie's story unfolds, the questions she and the movie ask defy expectations. There is a subversive edge to the film's idealism as it takes aim at war, greed and hypocrisy, leaving official lies dismantled and buildings crumbling and, more importantly, making way for much better things.

the sea beast

The bottom line

Deliciously subversive.

Release date: Friday, July 8

Emitir: Karl Urban, Zaris-Angel Hator, Jared Harris, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Dan Stevens

Director: cris williams

Guionistas: Chris Williams, Nell Benjamin

Rated PG, 1 hour 55 minutes

Set in a world of fantastical creatures and the likeliness of great ships circa 1700, the sea beast marries cartoon stylization with stunning photorealism. The portrayal of water, the film's primary setting, is especially powerful, whether the filmmakers capture its shimmering, turbulent surface or plunge into its calm depths. The skies are also impressively eloquent, with fire, mist and candlelight also effectively conjured. But despite everything, the nuance of the character is paramount.

Eleven-year-old Maisie is brought to life through excellent animation and vibrant voice acting by newcomer Zaris-Angel Hator. Just as Maisie goes toe-to-toe with celebrity sailors and haughty aristocrats, the young actress more than holds her own against seasoned pros like Jared Harris and Marianne Jean-Baptiste.

Beyond the larger-scale central themes, Williams and Nell Benjamin's screenplay is about two orphans and their unlikely bond. The first is Maisie, whose monster-hunting parents perished in a legendary showdown with giant ocean creatures. The second is the hunter Jacob Holland (Karl Urban), who also lost his parents at sea. The aftermath of his being shipwrecked and his rescue by Captain Crow (Harris) are captured with gripping intensity in the film's brief first scene.

As Crow's second-in-command, Jacob has become a legend, his intrepid adventures exalted in a book that Maisie reads aloud, with no shortage of dramatic flair, to her fellow orphanage residents. They are a rapt audience, but Jacob's exploits are more than a bedtime story for Maisie, who sees the sea as her calling. Intent on serving at the famous warrior's side, she escapes from the orphanage and takes refuge on his ship, the Inevitable, impressing Captain Crow and upsetting Jacob. First Officer Sarah Sharpe (Jean-Baptiste) deals with Maisie's intrusion with the same self-assurance she gives to anything.

Against the diverse spectrum of background figures that man the ship, an Ahab-like saga of revenge centers around the tough, weather-beaten Captain Raven, whose face has the rough, carved look of a ship's figurehead. His nemesis is not a great white whale but the mighty Red Bluster, an enormous beast shaped like a manatee, a horn reminiscent of a rhinoceros, a wide mouth of incisors reminiscent of the animal faces in How to Train Your Dragon , and expressive feline yellow eyes. It has been 30 years since Crow lost one of his own eyes in an encounter with Bluster. Now, if he can accomplish his mission of vanquishing the beast, he plans to retreat and hand over the helm to Jacob.

Despite Jacob's renown, arrogance, and words of encouragement to the crew about the glory of the hunter's life, his ambivalence creeps into almost every exchange. The father-son dynamic between him and the captain comes with an assumption about his purpose in life, something Maisie's presence forces him to examine. Later in the story, when Jacob and Maisie have endured countless dangers at sea and on land, her suggestion that they form a permanent team, like a family, and the way he rejects her, compresses two inner lives into one. few concise lines, played to perfection by Urban and Hator.

Similarly, Sarah Sharpe's vulnerability breaks through her military shell when Maisie urgently needs her help. And you don't have to dig far below Captain Crow's combativeness to see a man deflated by an unfulfilled mission and a sense of mortality, or at least the end of his career.

Captain Crow's final mission pits the Inevitable against the Imperator, a mega-ship designed to make old-school hunters like Crow and Jacob obsolete. Gilded to the gills, with guns by the dozen, it's a ridiculous monument to hype, led by smug Admiral Hornagold (Dan Stevens) as he moves into favor with the King (Jim Carter) and Queen (Doon Mackichan) and leads his war against the Red Bluster and all the beasts of the sea.

Separated from Crow's ship for much of the film, Jacob and Maisie encounter several of these beasts, including a giant purple crab. Blue, a little puppy-like creature with a quail plume, turns out to be not only a fun companion but a loyal friend, as well as a reminder that all so-called monsters were once a cute baby.

the sea beast has more in mind than fantasy, however. Maisie's general questions enter the story a little more than halfway through, shifting her emphasis, raising healthy questions, and ultimately touching on topics like scapegoating and war profiteering. Heavy stuff, and yet Williams keeps the flow of visual delights and banter, never losing sight of fearless Maisie and conflicted Jacob, or how these two orphaned souls connect.

All the action, whether it's suspenseful, moody, goofy or cute, is subtly enhanced by Mark Mancina's score. A shack whose killer lyrics are belted out with comic glee goes to the heart of this heady mix of moby-dick , the Book of Jonah, Kong vs. Godzilla , and countless tales of vaunted heroes: How much do we really see and hear around us? ? As Maisie, who proves to be an accomplished navigator of the unexpected, she tells Jacob, “The world is wide. And you don't know everything.