The Sea Beast

Animation in the mainstream has mostly been dominated by the more prestigious studios like Disney and DreamWorks, but it is always nice to see an animated film from outside of these spaces do well. While certain companies like Laika, Sony Pictures Animation, and Illumination have made enough movies to stand on their own, they can’t confidently compare to the legendary two yet, and their movies can sometimes plainly ben referencing the work of either (sometimes even getting some of their animators, directors, and writers). Netflix has had a decent line-up of animated properties, and films like Klaus, The Willoughbys, Nimona, and K-Pop Demon Hunters were clearly inspired by other films but still stand on their own and make for solid films. This also proved true for their 2022 animated film, The Sea Beast, which had several Disney and DreamWorks elements, yet still felt like its own and also did pretty well for itself.

Set during a time when sea monsters terrorize people throughout the world, sailors venture out to hunt these beasts, with one such ship being The Inevitable, led by the legendary Captain Crow (voiced by Jarred Harris) and his adopted son, Jacob (voiced by Karl Urban). Being funded by the King and Queen of the Crown (voiced by Jim Carter and Doon Mackichan) to hunt and slay the beast known as The Red Bluster, The Inevitable discovers a stowaway on their latest departure, a young girl obsessed with hunters called Maisie (voiced by Zaris-Angel Hator) who wishes to be a part of the crew. Before they have time to figure things out, the Bluster attacks the ship and separates Jacob and Maisie from the Inevitable, stranding them together on an isolated island with the beast close by. Maisie starts to notice that The Bluster (which she nicknames Red) isn’t the monster her books claim her to be, causing her to question their world’s very history, which Jacob is incredibly sceptical about considering he lived a hunting lifestyle for so long. After Red agrees to bring them back to civilization, Maisie and Jacob grow closer together, but with the Inevitable stalking Red now that Captain Crow (believing Jacob to be dead) is out for blood, they’ll need to convince their world of the truth behind this and every other sea beast.

Based on a short story titled Jacob and the Sea Beast, written by the film’s director, Chris Williams, The Sea Beast was met with solid reception from critics and audiences and provided another decent animated sitting for Netflix, but with the passage of time, it’s hard to say it left as much of an imprint as others in their lineup.

Most people aren’t always aware of new streaming releases because of selective marketing and the non-theatrical window, and The Sea Beast did receive a decent amount of advertising and banked up some positive discussion before most even got to see it. From the trailers showing brief glimpses of the story, art style, characters and themes, most would get a solid idea of what to expect, but upon seeing it, might be disappointed to learn that it doesn’t provide much beyond what that. The script written by Williams along with fellow screenwriter, Nell Benjamin, follows a very traditional route of a bickering duo growing closer due to being forced into a rough adventure and discovering a dark truth about their world that needs to be remedied, but doesn’t do much else to freshen up what has been demonstrated in several other movies prior. Even with a two-hour running time, the strangely slow pacing prevents time to flesh out its commentary or major relationships, trudging through otherwise well-handled set up without a fresh spark to keep most above a certain age intrigued.

There’s a decent idea for a message that sprouts around the halfway point about those in power manipulating history and information in order to other easily villainized communities in order to keep the masses at their mercy, but not only has this idea been done better in other stories, but because it’s such a last minute inclusion, it only takes time away from what was already being established. Nothing about this movie is truly done badly, it just feels very mediocre, and this ‘middle of the road’ delivery makes perfect sense due to its choice of director. Long time Disney animator, Chris Williams has been attached to films like Moana and Big Hero 6, films that have great qualities but are mostly just straightforward tales told in perfectly adequate ways without much new added to spice things up, and this film is no different. Nothing is annoying, lacking effort or bad to sit through, but it never feels like it’s offering something new in terms of its content, which is a hinderance for a story that wants to stand out and be meaningful with its messaging.

The characters, much like the story, follow very traditional archetypes and, while they are executed fine, aren’t much beyond them. Maisie is a young, spunky hopeful kid who wants to be part of the action but proves to be the voice of reason against the indifferent adults in the room, and Jacob is the heroic dashing hero that loves the action and doesn’t like kids, but through time spent with her and this new creature will discover that there is more to things than what he has been built up to believe. Neither are especially great, and the movie doesn’t do much else with them, but thankfully neither is necessarily unlikeable nor poorly handled. Both don’t have that strong a connection as it consists of nothing but them shouting insults back and forth (which is supposed to result in a believable familial bond by the end), Karl Urban is fine as the voice (even though the accent can sometimes crack in parts) but isn’t bringing anything something else couldn’t have brought, and Zaris-Angel Hator is very half-and-half as Maisie, sometimes getting the inflection and attitude down pretty nicely (mostly whenever she needs to act in control and confidant) and other times sounding pretty flat which mainly comes from most of her dialogue feeling very manufactured and unnatural for a child (she mostly speaks in inspirational trailer lines).

Jarred Harris has a voice that’d be a great fit for a grizzled pirate, but the character is a little too one-note and doesn’t get many strong moments, and many of the side characters aren’t given much time to be anything more than basic cut-outs for their narrative positions. The only character that has any sense of fun uniqueness is Red (which is good considering the film is named after her). While her being nice isn’t surprising for this kind of story and she tragically doesn’t have that strong a connection with the two leads, the fact that she doesn’t have a cute design with readable eyes creates a slightly different experience to other intentionally designed creatures who usually adopt realistic human eyes to better emote and connect with the audience. It creates a situation where it’s not always easy to read what she’s thinking, which, while not fully taken advantage of, is a nice element to spice up the formula.

The animation for this movie was provided by Sony Pictures Imageworks (a sister company to Sony Pictures Animation), who have been attached to Sony-related films like Open Season, Surf’s Up, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Smurfs and Hotel Transylvania, and ones from other studios like Arthur Christmas (Aardman Animations), Storks, Smallfoot (Warner Brothers Animation), The Angry Birds Movie (Rovio Animation), and Over the Moon (Pearl Studio). Considering their track record, the style of animation this film takes on makes more sense, as the look and feel has a very spongey slapstick focus to it, with the fast pacing and bombastic ways people are flung around adding onto this tone (even when it doesn’t really make sense). This doesn’t have to be an issue, but not only is it not especially good or even effective at the slapstick (as it never looks painful due to the very rubbery physics), but the animation is mostly very pretty, slow moving in the quiet portions, and has a strong Disney-esque style of coloration and pacing, causing this disconnect between how the film looks in status and how it looks in motion.

If it had more of a defined unnatural atmosphere where it could exist in this looser reality where people can be beaten and tossed without real world logic getting in the way, this wouldn’t be a problem, but because the animation looks and feel pretty nice when it does take it slower and more reserved, it doesn’t mesh well with this stance. Even if it is messily handled, it’s still nice animation with very bright inviting colors, unique characters designs that stand out, dynamic camera work that makes some of the action look pretty neat, and pretty cool creature designs that feel like illustrations that would come off one of those old pirate maps of the world. They are creative and actually feel like the part of the movie where the creators and animators wanted to do something more than just the bare minimum, which makes sense considering how important these creatures are to the story being told.

With all the hype the movie received before its release, The Sea Beast majorly just turned out to be fairly decent and given how it’s largely been forgotten while the previous four examples had more of a following, that seems to be the common consensus. In terms of overall quality, nothing is especially bad, and as a simple kids movie, it does its job fine and some kids and even adults will probably get into it, but in a time where animation and kids media is trying much harder to be more unique, mature and expand to new concepts outside of just the regular, one that does play it safe isn’t going to be recognized. A high-faring sea adventure that’s more like a leisurely pleasant skim across the water, The Sea Beast is no monster of a film but is still a perfectly cute one under the surface.