Cinemazlowski 'In the Heart of the Sea' a visually stunning success

Despite being an English major with a degree from a decent school, I've never read "Moby Dick." I just knew the bare bones about its story covering the epic battle between a great white whale and an obsessed band of men determined to bring it to its demise. 

 

So I was surprised to learn that there was a true story at the heart of its fantastical tale. In 1820, a New England whaling ship named "Essex" was truly under attack from the biggest whale anyone had ever seen. First detailed in the book "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whale Ship Essex" by Nathaniel Philbrick, that story is now brought to stunning life on the big screen by director Ron Howard. 

The story is told via flashback through the voice of an old sailor who was involved in the aquatic adventures as a teenage boy. He is confessing his bottled-up memories of the events at sea for the first time after decades of torment and sharing them with writer Herman Melville, who wound up utilizing his recollections as the basis for his classic story, "Moby Dick."

 

With dozens of sailors aboard the giant ship, the movie focuses mostly on the battle of wills and wits between the ship's veteran first mate, Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth of "Thor") and its first-time captain, George Pollard (Benjamin Walker). Their well-drawn characters help elicit terrific performances from the two men, who bring to life conflicts that still roil society to this day, namely rich versus poor, and the working class versus the entitled wealthy. 

 

Having two men, each desperate to prove themselves correct, is not a good recipe for success on a life-or-death mission that takes years to complete. Their assignment is to lead their crew on whale hunts that will stretch out as long as it takes to kill enough whales at sea to fill 2,000 barrels of whale oil. And that craven desperation for the oil, which is the substance that has been enabling large cities to be lighted, is a harbinger of our own modern quest for crude oil around the planet. 

 

Yet, off they sail, with Chase being the tougher yet more sensible officer, and Pollard determined to prove he can be macho rather than being the spoiled son of a whaling dynasty. But when they encounter a Spanish crew of sailors who say they were decimated by the biggest whale they had ever seen, the two men feel that there must be other normal-sized whales in the giant whale's territory as well.

 

Thus, despite the concerns of their crew, Chase and Pollard finally agree on one thing, ordering the ship to head out 1,000 miles from land and kill as many whales as they can to finally meet their quota and go home. What they never expected is for the giant whale to have seemingly preternatural intelligence to go with its ferocious power.

 

Howard and screenwriter Charles Leavitt do an astounding job bringing this story to life without making it feel like dated, stodgy history. Thanks to the wonders of modern-day special effects, viewers are pulled right into some of the most jaw-dropping storm, wave and whale-battle sequences ever put on screen. The duo also manages to show viewers the incredibly arduous work involved with sailors who have to also kill their prey themselves and prepare it for shipment to buyers.

 

"Sea" has little or no foul language, and no sex or nudity. But some of its violence is incredibly intense to the point of being shocking, and the men are forced to extremely desperate measures to stay alive at one point. So while this is a fantastic movie, it's still a tough watch at moments.

 

When some complain that no movie is worth today's ticket prices, I will gladly turn them from this week forward to consider movies like this one. Sure, there's a steep price involved to enjoy it in a theater, but this film takes you around the planet, sets your pulse racing as both storms and the whale set our heroes' lives in danger, makes you cry, and most of all makes you think about lessons everyone needs to learn.