The Sea Beast is a Wonderful Time at the Movies... or at Your Laptop
Netflix doesn't make good movies often, so let's celebrate!
It’s the summer of Karl Urban on laptops and smart TV’s across the nation! Along with continuing his stellar work on Amazon’s The Boys, Urban stars in Netflix’s new animated film The Sea Beast. Given that Urban — who boasts one of the coolest speaking voices in the universe — voices a swashbuckling sea-monster slayer, I thought I would give it a shot.
Shhh… don’t tell anyone… but it’s really quite good. I hate complimenting Netflix.
Jacob you side-burned idiot, there’s a monster behind you!
Urban’s character Jacob, is a member of a league of sea-monster hunters tasked with ridding the seas of as many beasts as they can. A la Wesley assuming the title of the Dread Pirate Roberts, Jacob is poised to assume the captaincy of the sea’s most fearsome vessel — the aptly named “Inevitable.”
But before he is to take the title from the legendary Captain Crow, the crew of the Inevitable must bring down a quarry that has eluded them for many years: the dreadful “Red Bluster.”
What first sounds like the premise of Moby Dick however, quickly morphs into something more closely resembling a mix of How to Train Your Dragon (perhaps the greatest film trilogy I’ve ever seen by the way, and the height of recent animated pictures) and DreamWorks’ Sinbad.
Jacob meets a kindred spirit in runaway orphan Maisie Brumble (Zaris Angel-Hator), a precocious young girl who stows away on “The Inevitable.” Despite the fact that both of their families were killed in battles with sea monsters, the duo begin to see a different side of the beasts during their travels.
Conceptually, the film is about redefining the notion of a life of legacy. At the beginning of The Sea Beast, both Maisie and Jacob live by the mantra of the hunters: “to live a great life, and die a great death.” Maisie — whose parents died on another hunting ship — takes the tales of bravery she reads in her history books as gospel. Jacob, much the same, desires nothing more than to assume the mantle of captain, as Crow’s surrogate son.
In fact, the ethos of the entire culture depicted in the Sea Beast’s coastal civilization, rests precariously on the history of its forefathers. But, as our protagonists soon come to learn, history is written by the winners.
It is this thematic ambition that helps make the world of The Sea Beast so memorable. From the design of the sea-monsters themselves, to the dialects and accents of its characters, the film has an undeniable, singular vibrance.
Yes, Dean DeBlois and the animators of How To Train Your Dragon might be a bit chagrined by the… shall we say similar? design of the “Red Bluster” to that of HTTYD’s “Toothless”, but I’m willing to look past that.
There is truly a lot to like about this movie. The score is spectacular, the story captivating, and it would be negligent not to also note the astounding voice work of Jared Harris (Captain Crow).
However, I do confess that despite the compelling style of the computer-rendered animation, I did wonder if this film might have really sung if it were hand-drawn. Oh, to again witness something so beautiful as the hand-drawn/CGI animation blending on display in Disney’s Treasure Planet or Atlantis would be wonderful indeed. But, I’m really just nitpicking now.
The Sea Beast is available now on Netflix (a streaming service of some renown). It’s great fun, and a nice reminder that good content shines through, even in a sea of monstrous crap.