Review of In the Heart of the Sea (2015) by Ahnehnois — 11 Dec 2015

I think what's so insulting about this movie is that it presents itself as the real story on which the fictional novel Moby Dick was based, and yet this story is fictionalized as well, often in pointless and overly conventional ways.

The film trumps up a competition between captain and first mate that goes nowhere and creates ridiculous and unnecessary foreshadowing, before leading to a downright comical conclusion. If you believe historical accounts, it is true that this ship was sunk by a whale, but the notion that the whale stalked the crew for weeks thereafter is ludicrous, let alone the shred of humanity the filmmakers tried to imbue in it.

Moreover, none of the actors are believably Bostonian whalers and the CGI isn't very good either (I saw it in IMAX 3D so I'm not getting cheated there). Even in 2015, fake water still looks like fake water. And the nastiness of being stranded is painfully obscured by the PG-13 rating, though you can look forward to some unpleasant whaling footage.

Perhaps the worst sin is that they missed out on the true story. The survivalism of the crew is fascinating, but is compressed into a few scenes. An anecdote about the crew burning down an entire island by accident, a golden cinematic opportunity, isn't in the film at all, nor are some of their other adventures. Thinly drawn trope characters are allowed to replace whatever genuine story inspired Melville to write his famous novel. Time is wasted on using Melville as a framing device. Though, in truth, the whole movie ends up being a waste of time.