In The Heart Of The Sea Is An All-Too Ordinary Epic

By Joel Wicklund in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 8, 2015 9:11PM

Ron Howard has been directing for nearly 40 years and owns a Best Director Oscar, but many of his movies seem like warmed-over Spielberg-Zemeckis-Cameron stew: familiar but forgettable. Count In the Heart of the Sea as another serving. This big, bland seafaring adventure passes the time well enough, though I suspect a bigger impact was intended.

Based on Nathaniel Philbrick's nonfiction National Book Award winner, the movie dramatizes the historic ocean disaster that inspired Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick. As in the novel, the true story follows a whaling expedition tragically undone by an attack from a massive sperm whale. Where Melville's tale was largely about obsession, the real saga, at least as recounted in the movie, is about survival.

Chris Hemsworth stars as Owen Chase, a Nantucket seaman expecting his first commission as captain of his own whaling ship. Instead he is assigned to be first mate to the less experienced George Pollard (Benjamin Walker), given the command only because of his family's status. Conflicts arise between the two immediately, and Pollard's arrogance leads to trouble when a major storm approaches.

They survive the storm only to face the wrath of the immense whale, which rams the ship to destruction. The survivors are left adrift in small expedition boats. Death from starvation or dehydration becomes a more immediate threat than the whale.

Hemsworth is more than a hunk, and brought some nice comic touches to his best-known character to date, Thor. But the screenplay here, by Charles Leavitt (Blood Diamond), strands Hemsworth with a generically gallant character. The consistently excellent Irish actor Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later, Batman Begins) fares better as Chase's closest friend on the crew, giving life to the potentially clichéd role of the reformed drinker surrounded by hard-drinking sailors.

The best acting comes in the story's framing segments, with Brendan Gleeson as the adult version of the ship's cabin boy (Tom Holland is the younger incarnation), relating the story to Melville, played by Ben Whishaw (Bright Star and the recent James Bond movies). Gleeson and Whishaw have terrific chemistry, though Howard hampers their scenes with self-consciously wobbly camerawork—presumably to mirror traumatic memories of the voyage.

The ocean action is heavily CGI-dependent, and the effects never wholly convince. Even scenes on land suffer a bit from the mix of realistic period detail and backgrounds that betray CGI artifice. If the movie were stronger dramatically or more mythic in tone, those disparities would be trivial, but Howard is first and foremost going for spectacle here, so the chinks in the technical armor stand out.

Howard has certainly come a long way from his first feature as a director, 1977's Grand Theft Auto, made when he was just 23 and still known mainly as the child/teen star of The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days. Produced by B-movie mogul Roger Corman, it's not a great movie, but it offers the charm of seeing an aspiring filmmaker find his way, discovering his strengths and weaknesses.

In the Heart of the Sea shows the opposite: a seasoned vet slickly going through the motions, but lost in the cogs and wheels of Hollywood's blockbuster machine.

In the Heart of the Sea. Directed by Ron Howard. Screenplay by Charles Leavitt. Story by Leavitt, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver, based on the book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. Starring Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson and Ben Whishaw. 121 mins. Rated PG-13.

Opens Friday, Dec. 11 at theaters nationwide, with select early screenings Thursday, Dec. 10.