movies: the sea beast

So... The Sea Beast. Is a movie.

If this was a live action movie, I would say that the costume and set design departments deserve all of the accolades. So, that, for the people who designed the character's outfits, the boats, and every single asset in this movie that wasn't a human face or the titular beast.

Other than that, this movie is, at best, mostly very pretty looking but a hot fucking mess.

It's also a much, much, much shittier version of How To Train Your Dragon. If you took that movie, misunderstood the assignment and tried to switch lanes in the last ten minutes in the most illogical way.

This movie is, perhaps, an abject lesson in why you don't employ a stage musical lyricist as your co-writer in a movie that doesn't have any songs.

And, that sometimes, there might be a reason why you've never been given the opportunity to direct something on your own.

Sorry, Chris Williams, I've very much enjoyed other projects you've been involved with, but I think perhaps it was in spite of your involvement, not because of it.

Because the things that are wrong with this movie are... as follows: 

• The entire script, especially your understanding of how the world you created actually works and your need to put in a last minute reveal that undercuts the previous 100 minutes of movie.
• The performance of your female lead. 
• The design of your titular beast.

Let's start with the last one and work backwards, shall we.

Maybe making a big, red, mostly smooth, featureless creature that looks, at certain points, either like a thumb or a penis, is perhaps NOT where you want to go with that design in a children's movie. I'm doubly annoyed because the concept art for that creature is gorgeous by comparison. And fixes pretty much all of the problems I have with the beast. 

Maybe also understand how underwater air-breathing creatures and their nostrils work. Just a thought. Because I'm like 80% sure that even a sea monster doesn't work that way.

Also, next time (hahaha, what am I saying, like there will ever be a next time, unless Netflix wants to waste some money), don't take Toothless from HTTYD, paint it red, remove the wings, add flippers and call it job done. Or slam the back of a whale onto the front of a seal and then give it a lizard head.

The problem as well is that the beast that we see at the start of the movie is 1000% better designed than the beast that's our "third lead". In fact, every single other beast in this movie is designed better than Red.

And, it's very weird, the little blue weirdo creature, Blue (yeah, this movie and naming things)... I feel like I've seen almost exactly that character in something before. A slightly chubby, voiceless character who eats random things and is just generally weird. I have such a strong sense memory of having seen it in something, but I can't place where or what right now. Maybe, much like this movie, it's a combination of a bunch of different things, all recycled into something "new".

Next, part of the problem with your female lead is the god-awful script. However, the combination of the dialogue and Zaris-Angel Hator's performance makes the character of Maisie come of as so horrible precocious that I never really liked her at any point in the movie. She just comes off as annoying or dumb for the entire movie and so I didn't care about anything she was doing.

Karl Urban does pretty well as the other lead, Jacob, but I do feel like his accent is slightly all over the place throughout the movie.

My favourite character had to be Sarah Sharp, voiced by the wonderful Marianne Jean-Baptiste (who seems like I've seen her in a million things, but I think I mostly know her from a TV show from 20 years ago). If you want to pay someone good to write the script for a spin off movie starring her, I'd be here for it.

Let's move on to the script.

If you've seen How To Train Your Dragon, you've seen the good version of this story. Because, honestly, this movie is mostly that, but without the finesse and talent required to make the story effective and interesting.

It's also a painfully obvious script right up until the point that the movie totally shoots itself in it's own narrative foot.

And because it's bad and because it doesn't make any sense and because it's just most of the plot of a good movie that is twelve years old at this point, I don't actually care about spoiling it. So here we go.

The movie uses the same plot as HTTYD in that there are sea monsters (dragons), and hunters (vikings), and the hunters hunt and kill the sea monsters because the sea monsters attack their ships every time they go out. And also that it gets them a bunch of money, and, maybe, possibly, makes their kingdom a lot of money (it's unclear honestly).

And, of course, the fight has been going on for generations and generations.

Then annoying girl and white blond protagonist man (who, between them make up about one third of Hiccup), encounter The Worst Monster Of Them All (in this instance, Red... in essence, Toothless) and, what do you know, turns out that it's not bad after all. And it's not a mindless beast. It's... dude... it's fucking Toothless. The Sea Beast is 1000% just a shitter, female, bright red version of Toothless. From looks to demeanour, the whole nine yards.

And it seems like the movie is saying "yeah, both sides did bad things, nobody knows how this fight started, maybe it was the monsters, maybe it was the people, nobody can actually say, war is hell"... which is... How To Train Your Dragon. But, you know, not the world idea.

But then, in the last ten or fifteen minutes of the movie, the story takes a hard left into Crazy Town.

Because suddenly, Maisie makes the leap in logic (and it is a leap and it makes no fucking sense), that because the books that tell stories about the monsters attacking humans has the crest of the empire on them, that somehow the king and queen are... making a big conspiracy. Sorry, what the actual fuck movie.

Maybe the books all have the crest of them because they're PRINTED IN THE FUCKING KINGDOM. And even if the empire is printing those books, that doesn't mean that they know anything about how the war started or what the monsters are like. It just means that, in the way of empires everywhere, they will keep conflict going if it suits them. Although it's never made explicitly clear HOW... unless you're just supposed to assume that because the castle is a gold and pearl encrusted nightmare and the king and queen are likewise wearing All The Gold, that somehow killing the monsters make them rich?

At the end of the day... the problem is that the movie presents a (somewhat weak) "both sides are to blame" argument in relation to the plot, but then, without presenting any actual evidence or information or proof, makes a radical leap in (not) logic and suddenly decides that the empire is to blame.

Yep, sorry guys, no. You just ruined your entire movie. Well done.

So, know that the rating I give this movie is based entirely on how pretty a lot of it looks. And... that's it.

yani's rating: 2 dumb but pretty storybooks out of 5