In the Heart of the Sea is being marketed by Warner Bros. as an adventure movie that tells the “true tale” of the whaling ship Essex that inspired Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. Neither is entirely accurate. In the Heart of the Sea is much more a survival movie about shipwrecked whalers than it is about a deadly whale or an obsessive captain, and even a rudimentary reading of the Wikipedia page on the Essex will demonstrate how far the film veers from the historical accounts of the Essex shipwreck and its aftermath. But while expecting fidelity of a film version of a historical event that happened nearly 200 years ago is pointless, expecting a good movie isn’t. While In the Heart of the Sea has some positive aspects, it amounts to one of the most uneven films of Ron Howard’s career as a director.
In 1850, Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) visits Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), the last living survivor of the Essex shipwreck of 1820 because he believes that the material would make for a great novel. Nickerson is ornery and refuses to speak about it, but he finally agrees to talk about it after prodding from his wife (Michelle Fairley). Nickerson then narrates the tragic story of the whaling ship Essex, including the dangerous feud between the inexperienced Captain Pollard (Benjamin Walker) and weathered First Mate Chase (Chris Hemsworth). Nickerson was the ship’s cabin boy (played by Tom Holland, which means Nickerson somehow aged 40+ years in 30), and he recounts in gruesome detail how the crew survived a shipwreck caused by a massive whale and being stranded at sea for three months.
This is a story that should make a great film. But In the Heart of the Sea just isn’t one for a variety of reasons. The “privilege vs. experience” conflict between Pollard and Chase is supposed to drive the film, but it telegraphs so much of the plot because we know that most of what Pollard does is going to be wrongheaded and most of what Chase does is going to be perfect. There are a few annoying details about the film that are hard to ignore. The whale is treated like Jaws as it stalks and attacks the crew several times over the course of the film, which comes across as silly (and this movie is certainly not Jaws). Hemsworth’s odd New England accent is all over the map and it’s jarring to hear it whenever it pops up. Finally, Oscar-winning cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle overuses “point of view” shots – including shots of objects that could not have a point of view – that look like they were made specifically for the GoPro generation. It just doesn’t fit the material. Cillian Murphy is also in this movie, but you’d barely know it because the extent of his character’s role is that he is Chase’s best friend and he no longer drinks alcohol. You can probably guess what general direction that plot thread goes in.
In the Heart of the Sea isn’t a terrible film, but for a two hour movie about an 1820 whaling vessel it plays way too much like a generic blockbuster, which is what it shouldn’t be. How many general moviegoers in 2015 would otherwise be buying tickets to watch a whaling movie? This isn’t a project that has mainstream appeal, so it shouldn’t have been made for mainstream audiences. And despite the poster, there is no scene where Hemsworth (or anyone else) swims up to the eye of an impossibly big whale with a harpoon.
Howard, Hemsworth, and Mantle made a far better film in 2013’s Rush. There are also many adaptations of Moby Dick that are better (the 1956 version directed by John Huston starring Gregory Peck is a favorite despite obviously outdated effects). In fact, Warner Bros. seems to have realized this. Warner Bros. has already opened In the Heart of the Sea in most overseas markets in an effort to get ahead of Star Wars domination (in the U.S., it opens a week before Star Wars) to less-than-stellar business. It’s also opening two weeks before another Warner Bros. release, Point Break. In the Heart of the Sea was originally set for a March 2015 release, and though it’s not a great film it deserves more than being dumped the week before Star Wars.
As for Hemsworth, he has the distinction of starring in one bomb in January (Blackhat) and one likely bomb in December to bookend 2015. He’s probably happy that Avengers: Age of Ultron came in between.
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