For centuries, bands of sailers known as hunters have scoured the seas, at war with the giant sea beasts who live within their depths.
Maisie (Zaria Angel-Hator) is a young orphan who is determined to follow her parents and become a hunter.
Stowing aboard a ship, she ends up thrown overboard during a battle.
Marooned with hunter Jacob (Karl Urban) and confronted by the formidable sea beast Red, Maisie comes up with a radical idea to get them home and, maybe, change the course of history…
Netflix is a gift and a curse.
A gift for discovering new movies I would not otherwise watch.
A curse because it has become a black hole where movies disappear.
The Sea Monster (directed by Chris Williams, one of the co-directors of Moana) feels like a movie that should be on the big screen.
I remember the shorts for this playing on Netflix’s Home Screen and I dismissed it. But then the reviews dropped and I had to check it out.
There is something wonderfully knowing about The Sea Monster. Yes, it is a monster movie, but it is also a movie about conservation, in a manner reminiscent of the more empathetic kid-saves-an-animal movies that came out through the nineties.
On top of this, it ends up being a story about the ways in which history is shaped to uphold empire.
This is not subtext - this is explicit through the film and is articulated by the characters.
It is also just a lot fun.
There is a cute animal sidekick who joins our heroes, but other than that The Sea Beast is all about living up to its title.
This movie is clearly an excuse for its filmmakers to live out their fantasies of monsters, swashbuckling and other seafaring derring-do.
If this movie came out when I was between 7-10, it probably would have been my favourite movie.
Alongside Big Red, we get a kraken, a giant crab and various whale-like entities.
The action is intense and well-directed - the camera emphasises the size and scale of its creatures from the perspective of its human characters.
We get some shots of Red’s facial expressions, but otherwise the filmmakers always view her and the other sea beasts with a human character to create a sense of their size.
Because the virtual camera stays earthbound, it actually feels like characters are in peril.
The cast also contribute to the movie’s grounding.
Zaria Angel-Hator is winning as Maisie. Enthusiastic but clear-eyed, she wants to be a hunter and the movie charts her journey to realising her dream was based on a lie.
Karl Urban is also good as Jacob, a veteran hunter who gets a meaty arc as Maisie helps him begin to reckon with the perspective of the creatures he has dedicated his life to destroying.
Because of her youth, Maisie is not as entrenched to the propaganda of the hunters, and she is able to get a
The standout of the supporting players is Jared Harris as Captain Crow, an Ahab-like captain who is obsessed with killing Red. He gives the character a conflicted sense of honour and vengeance that prevents the character from coming off as a simple villain.
What really marks the movie out is its unwillingness to treat its characters in purely black and white.
The movie is defined by its empathy - one of the key images of the movie is the countless harpoons sticking out of Red’s back.
This movie is built for the biggest screen possible - the set piece with the Kraken; the battle between the giant crab and Red; even the beautiful shot of our heroes watching the luminescence of the jellyfish as they swim past.
It never feels like it is talking down to its audience, with the weight of its ideas, but it is also in love with showing monsters smashing props, scenery and other monsters.
The Sea Beast works however you want it - it is a genuine four-quadrant movie.
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