Hundreds of Japanese ‘scientists’ would see this film as a terrifying monster movie. To the rest of us it is the origin story for Herman Melville’s discovery of the tale of the whaling ship Essex. A tale that ultimately became Moby Dick.
In the 1820s whale oil was still a huge source of energy, and the only way to ‘harvest’ it was to head into deep seas armed with only harpoons and astonishing bravery. On this voyage the Essex is manned by a rag tag crew and lead by two very different stereotypes… men.
Brave and handsome man from humble beginnings Mr Chase (Chris Hemsworth) and snivelly hands off born of privilege Mr Pollard. The reality might have been different but the differences are night and day in the film.
Once in the deep blue off Massachusetts with voyages sometimes exceeding a year, tensions grow as the dreaded cabin fever takes hold. The crew learn of a large white whale that strikes fear into crews and turns the tables on the hunters, but they ignore the noise and continue the voyage.
But the big white whale demands attention…
The whaling scenes are both compelling and abhorrent, hardening back too time when this was of course commonplace and necessary. Obviously with 90% of the activity CGI it is hard to get caught up in these scenes, but the initial hunt is quite eventful and exciting.
As far as the acting, Hemsworth is the big name, and he is typically virile and stoic, but I’ll be damned if this his is a genuine Boston accent. Brendan Gleeson isn’t asked to do too much as the film’s proxy narrator, and aside from these Cillian Murphy seems a little wasted in a nothing role, and Frank Dillane – the whiny junkie from Fear the Walking Dead – proves that he can be unlikeable across multiple formats.
In the Heart of the Sea tells the telling of a story proficiently, but there is little to be captivated by. The sequences with whales have been done better by nature documentaries, and the story itself isn’t dissimilar enough to a dozen marine based adventures of recent years to stand out from the pod… herd.
Final Rating – 6.5 / 10. A whale of a tail that has gone a tad stale…
