“Living a wonderful life and dying big,” says Monster Hunter’s mantra in Netflix’s new animated film, The Sea Beast. It’s certainly a cheerful fighting cry, but it’s also morbid and made even more scary by the fact that the character who first said it was a child.
Initially directed by Chris Williams (“Moana”, “Big Hero 6”) and written by Williams and Neil Benjamin, the world of this film seems comfortable and instructive. The people of the island kingdom grew up afraid of the giant sea monsters creeping into the sea. A ship full of hunters heroically defeated the beasts and brought some of their corpses back to the king and queen. It’s not a genius to see the eerie side of this and wonder when the film will introduce that inevitable paradigm shift.
The change is mainly triggered by a girl named Maisie (spoken by Zaris-Angel Hator), the same character whose first champion died in “Great Death”. Macy, who became an orphan when her parents of two creature hunters died at work, left herself in the story of a nasty beast and the legendary sailor who killed them. She most idolizes the famous ship called Inevitable. When her boat anchors right next to a stuffy group home, she sneaks up and climbs.
The inevitable crew was ordered by the king to kill a giant monster called the Red Blaster. If the mission fails, the monarchy will abolish the ship. This is a stake on the prominent hunter Jacob (Karl Urban) next to Captain and the older Captain Crow (Jared Harris) who has been resenting the beast ever since. add. Maisie’s unconscious comrade Jacob is hurting his own past with monsters.
The “Sea Beast” is fully animated. The character’s facial expressions rarely correspond to enthusiastic voice acting, but the background and underwater shots are especially great. Its fantastic creatures range from unstimulated (red blasters) to fascinating (blue aquatic companions named after Macy). Like the pink sand beaches of bubble gum, there are other fun visual choices, and the movie has an ensemble of strikingly diverse background characters. Even when the story is dragged, the lively score by Mark Mancina makes things snappy.
Of course, slow storytelling isn’t ideal, especially in children’s movies. “The Sea Beast” hasn’t earned nearly two hours of execution time. If there were few detours, the landing could have been easily stopped.For example, Captain Crow takes something inevitable In an ominous side quest that introduces a character who never appears again despite drawing a foreshadowing badly.
But the biggest sin of this script is its solid predictability. Learn lessons and fight enemies, but nothing very surprising happens in the meantime. An unlikely duo will gather. The courageous girl gets a cute animal as her companion. Good and evil are not really what they look like. Last year, Pixar launched his own prejudiced “Luka” and discovered his family and sea monsters, but it’s hard to compare while looking at the “Sea Beast.” “Luka” is the far more heartfelt, original and stylish of the two.
Sea beast
Rated PG. Execution time: 1 hour 55 minutes. Watch it on Netflix.
