The Sea Beast

The Sea Beast

The life of a legendary sea monster hunter is turned upside down when a young girl stows away on his ship.

  • Released: 2022-07-08
  • Runtime: 120 minutes
  • Genre: Adventure, Animation, Comedy
  • Stars: Karl Urban, Zaris-Angel Hator, Jared Harris, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Dan Stevens, Kathy Burke, Benjamin Plessala, Somali Rose, Kaya McLean, Davis Pak, Helen Sadler, Xana Tang, Alex Wyndham, Brian T. Delaney, Ian Mercer, Shannon Chan-Kent, Max Mittelman, Paul Chowdhry, Jim Carter, Doon Mackichan, Rajia Baroudi, Emily O'Brien, David S. Lee
  • Director: Chris Williams
 Comments
  • martenbengtsson - 12 June 2024
    Unconventional and clever
    In my opinion a really well made movie! I'm no expert but I got kids of 8 and 4 y o and I was comparatively impressed with the thorough work, the great adventure, the humour, the haracters, the odd cineastic tricks and the effort in creating some really beautiful sceneries in an animated movie.

    I'd say the directing is unconventional for this genre which I thought was exciting. There is usage of unconventional "camera angles" and a way of portraying action scenes in a very *realistic*, big budget movie kind of way.

    Maybe somewhat surprisingly, it features some soft psychological horror (sort of nightmarish), like being pulled under water by a giant sea beast and a fair bit of drinking also ;)

    More importantly, the movie makes an important point on who writes history and what for.
  • Benjamin-M-Weilert - 17 October 2023
    A somewhat derivative but gorgeously animated adventure.
    It's weird how there's been such a shift in CG animated films that something like The Sea Beast (2022) feels like they made it years ago. The realism in CGI has reached a point where movies from studios that aren't Disney, Pixar, or DreamWorks look gorgeous. Since there's been a leveling of what animated films can look like, the plot has become more important to these kinds of films. Unfortunately, while The Sea Beast looks great, its plot feels derivative of How to Train Your Dragon (2010), just with pirate-like characters instead of Vikings.

    That there aren't a ton of sea-faring stories out there, let alone animated ones, makes The Sea Beast a unique setting. With so many fantasy worlds set in medieval Europe, basing one off the slightly more modern sailing age feels fresh. I'm a little surprised that there weren't more inventive uses of the technology of that era, since the monsters were much more sizable than the ones from the real-world timeframe. Even the "new technology" that made the hunters obsolete just felt like a standard ship with some increased firepower.

    Aside from the main character (voiced by Karl Urban), most of the characters in The Sea Beast didn't feel particularly memorable. I appreciated some of the hinted backstories for the characters without diving deep into flashbacks, but that should be standard world-building for any fantasy world like this. I'm not wild about plots that make advancements in technology (which might save lives in hazardous situations) out as villains. However, the only reason it's really acceptable here is due to the other cliché plot about nature only being dangerous when it's threatened by humans. Still, if you can ignore some of these things, The Sea Beast is a fun adventure.

    A somewhat derivative but gorgeously animated adventure, I give The Sea Beast 3.5 stars out of 5.