Featuring a storyline Chris Williams co-wrote with Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde: The Musical), The Sea Beast takes place in a world where sea monsters and monster hunters have been at battle for millennia for control of the oceans. Friendship and an encounter with an evil monster force two young people who were previously certain of their own destiny to reconsider their assumptions after a little girl steals away aboard a historic ship known for monster hunting. After co-directing two of Disney’s finest pictures of the previous decade, Big Hero 6 and Moana, Williams is making his directorial debut with The Sea Beast.
Similar to such films, The Sea Beast brings complex topics down to a personal level that children can understand, wrapping them in something both wonderful and familiar. ‘The Sea Beast’ Ultimately, it achieves what so many “family” films strive for but never quite manage to find: a point of connection between generations. Besides the obvious themes of opening your heart to the world around you and being open to change, The Sea Beast explores the terrible toll that obsession can take on us all (which gives the film a Moby Dick-esque vibe), the importance of questioning history and tradition, and the way that families can be something we create for ourselves rather than something we are destined to be a part of as children.
To put it another way, these concepts are a lot to handle on their own, but the film manages to weave them all together in a way that is both organic to the plot and universal, no matter what your age. Zaris-Angel Hator (The Power, The Midnight Gang) provides a performance that is more than just precocious as the young girl at the centre of the narrative, Maisie. Sony Pictures Imageworks, the company behind Hotel Transylvania and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, provided the voice talent and the character design and animation for her, allowing her to steal every scene, appear wiser than her years, and give some of the film’s most cheer-worthy moments.
Although he does not appear in the film, Karl Urban’s (The Boys) portrayal as legendary monster hunter Jacob Holland serves as a wonderful reminder of just how compelling the New Zealand actor’s voice can be even when he does not. Jacob is given a harder edge by the gruff voice of Dredd and Star Trek star, and this provides Urban’s range with a new perspective and makes the character’s plot arc and emotional journey feel more prominent. The Sea Beast’s voice cast is led by Hator and Urban, but the rest of the actors do a great job as well. Jared Harris and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who previously starred in Chernobyl and Foundation, respectively, play the captain and first mate of the ship, both excel in their roles.
The people they portray have a depth and humanity that might otherwise have faded into the background or become trite cliches. It’s worth mentioning that the film’s musical score adds an extra dimension of enjoyment to the experience. Since social media has resurrected the sea shanty, the film manages to squeeze a lot of them into its two-hour running time. It’s hard to say that these songs will become instant classics, but they’re nevertheless enjoyable and help to set the mood of the movie in a way that’s fitting for the time period and the setting of the film’s story. In order for Netflix to achieve the same level of confidence in quality, family-friendly entertainment as established companies like Disney, Pixar, and Lucasfilm, The Sea Beast serves as a positive sign.
The Sea Beast is available to stream on Netflix on the 8th of July.