Director:Chris Williams
Writers: Chris Williams, Nell Banjamin
Writers: Chris Williams, Nell Banjamin
Studio: Netflix Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks
Watched on: 22/01/2023
Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for The Sea Beast
Ratings:
A pretty predictable family film that adjusts the formula just enough in terms of looking at society correctly but doesn't really deliver much in terms of story. It's cute and has some pretty impressive animation but overall, wouldn't say this is one anyone needs to rush to watch, nor do I imagine anyone considers it a classic. It's calm.
For me, the best thing about the story is its concept. It encourages us to question why we we wage wars, reflect on the harm we cause to animals and overall focus more on living a great life than dying a great death, as glorious and noble as it sounds. So it's a win on that front. But otherwise, the story is pretty boring and doesn't bring a lot of new stuff with it. I'd even say that its themes and settings are way too close to How to Train Your Dragon for it to even really be considered novel. I will say it starts off strong but kinda falls off from the fight with the Bluster onwards.
The story is a good one in principal but feels like it's missing its own story beats. Even for key parts of the story. Like Jacob and Maisie become the typical unlikely family but there aren't any moments when they really bond; you basically just get familiar with seeing them together because of sheer screentime. Practically nothing happens to convince Sarah Sharpe to act any differently to how she has for the last (presumably) 40+ years. Same thing for all the people in the fancy shmancy royal town. Why did they suddenly believe the word of this completely random kid instead of a lifetime's worth of propaganda? It would have been way more convincing if the beast had done something really extraordinary (and no, simply not attacking Captain Crow isn't extraordinary enough - not in nature and not even by significance on screen). With all of these significant events missing, it seems even stranger to have included the weird blood oath with the shaman lady, which had absolutely no impact on the story. Not the price to pay, not even the poison, really. Could have cut that out and actually shown all the other stuff.
The characters are pretty meh. Even the main characters seem to switch up with no real life-changing events. The side cast seems pretty cool but doesn't have much depth to it. Although I will give the film props for making the King and Queen look as ridiculous and pompous as they possibly could. Otherwise, even character designs are pretty standard. Nothing super distinctive or revolutionary going on and even the design for Red itself looked like it was a draft design yet to get the last touches. Legitly even made it hard to connect with the beast at times. Although the other beasts were pretty cool looking.
Animation was definitely very high quality in this film. The odd shot here or there seemed a bit uncanny but otherwise, from start to finish it's impressive. The ocean, complete with waves and foam, was so skillfully done! It even had the perfect level of transparency for you to be able to see the beasts beneath the surface or for them to do an over- and under-water shot in the same scene. Plus they had loads of different hair textures on all the human characters (Maisie's coils especially must have taken a lot of time and attention, because they had multiple shots of it dry and wet) and the various moving body parts of a handful of beasts. They even occasionally threw in a fight scene, which was nice and they were perfectly weighty and believable.
Storytelling is another one that was pretty good throughout. Nice clear shots with solid framing, sharp angles to emphasize size or force and lots of clear articulation of the many massive ocean encounters. Can't say they did anything revolutionary either but it was definitely good.
So yeah, happy to see Netflix pumping out animated features and not shying away from encouraging its audience to question those in power. But truthfully, not an amazing film by any means.
