海角大神

'In the Heart of the Sea' is serviceable but mostly unstirring

'Sea' stars Chris Hemsworth and Benjamin Walker as sailors whose ship is destroyed by a whale. The remaining crewmen must struggle to survive.

I鈥檓 a sucker for 19th-century seafaring movies, especially ones in which the words 鈥淭har she blows鈥� can be heard above the din. This is not to say that such movies, by definition, are good. Case in point: Ron Howard鈥檚 鈥淚n the Heart of the Sea,鈥� a serviceable but mostly unstirring adaptation of Nathaniel Philbrick鈥檚 eponymous 2000 nonfiction bestseller, which had as its subtitle, 鈥淭he Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.鈥� But I鈥檓 pretty sure I heard someone from the topmast yell out 鈥淭har she blows,鈥� so that counts for a lot.聽

The New England whaling ship Essex was attacked in the South Pacific in 1820 by a gigantic white leviathan, capsizing the ship; only a handful of the crew survived after months lost at sea. Does any of this sound familiar? The film鈥檚 flash-forward/flashback conceit, scripted by Charles Leavitt, is that, 30 years later, the young novelist Herman Melville bribes the Essex鈥檚 sole living survivor, Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), to unload to him the true story, as opposed to the whitewashed official version, of what happened aboard the Essex and its aftermath. It seems Melville has a novel he wishes to write but needs a bit more deep background.

This framing device is apocryphal, of course. Melville knew of the Essex but 鈥淢oby-Dick,鈥� that peerless masterpiece of Shakespearean proportions, draws hardly at all on the details of that whaling ship鈥檚 fate. Essentially, what the two narratives share is a white whale, and the whale in 鈥淚n the Heart of the Sea,鈥� when it finally flares its flukes, is actually kind of mottled 鈥� off-white with greenish-gray accents.

Howard directs the movie as if, except for the CGI effects, he were an old studio hand in the Golden Age of Hollywood. 鈥淚n the Heart of the Sea鈥� would not look out of place in the same stiff, stalwart company as 鈥淐aptains Courageous鈥� or the Clark Gable-Charles Laughton 鈥淢utiny on the Bounty鈥� (though not with John Huston鈥檚 鈥淢oby Dick,鈥� a far more powerful experience).

The real ocean battle, at least until the big guy shows up, is not with a whale but between the Essex鈥檚 clueless high-born Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker), whose lineage unfairly qualifies him for the post, and his first mate, Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth), who by all rights, except, alas, his low-born birth, should be commanding the ship. It鈥檚 the haves versus the have-nots, which I suppose has a contemporaneous cachet, as does the film鈥檚 depiction of the apocalyptically awful lengths people will go to in order to keep their homes heated. (Just substitute fossil fuels for whale oil.) But thankfully Howard doesn鈥檛 push the then-and-now comparisons, preferring to stick with more palatable material, such as the young Nickerson (Tom Holland) descending into the gross, gooey innards of a harpooned whale. Later on, the men, lost at sea, cozy up to cannibalism.聽

The white whale of this movie is a 鈥淛aws鈥�-style attack machine, so I guess there鈥檚 an eco-terrorist side to this story as well. The whale is telling the Essex crew in no uncertain terms not to mess with Mother Nature. Despite Chase鈥檚 stirring exhortations 鈥� my favorite: 鈥淎s I live and breathe, he鈥檚 mine!鈥� 鈥� I often found myself rooting for the whale. I never felt this way about the great white shark in 鈥淛aws,鈥� except, possibly, when he dined on Robert Shaw.

They don鈥檛 make these kinds of 鈥淭har she blows鈥� movies much anymore, at least not unless they star Russell Crowe, so I guess there are nostalgic pleasures to be had here. The film is uninspiringly OK, and if you close your eyes, or, better yet, if you open them, you might just believe you had been transported back to 1930s Hollywood. If the movie accomplishes nothing else, though, I hope it inspires the curious to actually sit down and finally read 鈥淢oby-Dick.鈥� It鈥檚 an extraordinary yarn. Really. Grade: C+ (Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and peril, brief startling violence, and thematic material.)