Movie Info
Movie Name: The Sea Beast
Studio: Netflix Animation/Netflix
Genre(s): Animated/Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Family
Release Date(s): June 15, 2022 (Annecy International Animation Film Festival)/June 24, 2022 (US)
MPAA Rating: PG
Here there be Monsters!
The battle between land dwellers and sea beast has been raging for as long as anyone remembers and people like Captain Crow, his assistant Jacob Holland, and his first mate Sarah Sharpe are legends for their work on the Inevitable. Crow has been hunting the Red Bluster which maimed him years ago. When orphaned Maisie Brumble finds her way upon the Inevitable, she is eager to join the hunt as her parents did before her…but a dangerous encounter with Red Bluster leaves Jacob and Sarah stranded with the beast…and they discover the history that they have been fed for years might not be the truth.
Written and directed by Chris Williams (with additional Nell Benjamin), The Sea Beast is an animated adventure film. The Netflix film premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and then was released on Netflix to positive reviews. The movie received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature.
An adorable (marketable) creature!
I go on Netflix, I watch a lot of Netflix original content, but I hadn’t heard about The Sea Beast until it was nominated for an Academy Award (beating out some of the more talked about animated movies). Watching The Sea Beast, it was enjoyable…but it also felt like very familiar territory.
The story is about the war between sailors and the sea beasts, but it turns out the sea beasts are misunderstood and can be friends with humanity if the war ends. A young girl discovers this and has to teach her people it is possible…which feels too close to the plot of How to Train Your Dragon. The similarities between the two films is tangible, but The Sea Beast is also able to incorporate later sequels to round itself out a bit.
The vocal cast is good with Karl Urban and Zaris-Angel Hator as the leads Jacob and Maisie. They are joined by Jared Harris (Captain Crow), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Sarah Sharpe), and others including Jim Carter. It is a good cast that performs well, but it is also kind of expected by animated films at this point.
Can I keep him?
The film’s animation is nice but not entirely distinctive. The best shots in the film are demonstrating the size of the monsters in comparison to the diminutive humans. It demonstrates their danger and their power. While the Red Bluster is threatened, it never feels like there is a ton of real danger for the monster…but it also doesn’t have as much personality as Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon (which does open it up for potential risk).
The movie ends as you’d expect it to and the whole film is relatively harmless. With a ton of innovative animated films, I kind of expected more from The Sea Beast. There is nothing wrong with the movie, and if you haven’t seen the something like How to Train Your Dragon, you might like it more…but I’d stick to the dragons.
Related Links:
