Film Review: Tale of the sea fails to inspire

RON Howard’s sure touch at the box office has gone AWOL of late despite making such cracking movies as Frost/Nixon and Rush.

 

The Heart Of The Sea is an ambitious seafaring adventure whose failure will mean less risk-taking

 

The director’s latest was intended to put the maker of Apollo 13, Ransom and A Beautiful Mind back on top but instead has turned into his costliest flop. It is a shame because The Heart Of The Sea is an ambitious and old-fashioned seafaring adventure whose failure will mean less risk-taking and even more superhero movies from the Hollywood studios.

On the other hand, it is not hard to see that young audiences might draw a blank at a film that sells itself as “the true story that inspired Moby-Dick”. As much reverence as I have for that great work of literature it is not exactly a must-see pitch given that the book was published in 1851 and I presume many more people have heard of it than read it, like me.

That said, for those who see the film, it will certainly spark interest in the book and in the character of author Herman Melville, who is here played by Ben Whishaw (or “Q” as my son excitedly pointed out). Melville’s investigation into the real story is used as a framing device with the adventure unfolding in flashback as Melville teases out the truth from the crew’s last survivor, now a jaded sea dog, Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson).

 

He was then a boy of 14 and the youngest member of the ill-fated crew and he is played superbly by Brit Tom Holland, a Jamie Bell look-alike who was recently cast as Spider-Man. Set in Nantucket in New England, pre-expedition, and then mostly on the high seas, the picture is a beautifully crafted yarn that places you right on the rolling decks of the whaling ship Essex as it sails into very stormy waters and encounters a nemesis in the form of a monster-sized sperm whale.

It is, frankly, a bit of an unfair fight: a handful of sailors in a wooden ship versus one of the biggest creatures on the planet in a vengeful mood. The inevitable outcome rather detracts from the tension. It is giving nothing away to say that what unfolds is a survival story as the crew are forced to abandon ship and bob about the Pacific Ocean in a small launch.

 



Ron Howard’s sure touch at the box office has gone AWOL of late



The inevitable outcome rather detracts from the tension

 

What we really need to maintain interest is human conflict but, unfortunately, all we get is some rather rote, class-based, argy-bargy between the ship’s captain, the overprivileged but underqualified George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) who is the ship owner’s son, and the rugged first mate Owen Chase (Thor’s Chris Hemsworth), son of a disgraced farmer through whose eyes the adventure unfolds.

The screenplay fails to make them or the supporting characters, including Cillian Murphy’s second mate, especially interesting. However, the essentials of the story still compel in a Boy’s Own adventure kind of way as the crew’s circumstances grow ever more desperate and also, it must be noted, more grim. Rather than deliver a rousing climax the picture ends on a rather depressing note, a salutary lesson in how to survive but not especially edifying or inspiring.

 

The production values and special effects are first class and the history of whaling for oil is intriguing. One character’s closing words refer to a recent discovery of oil “beneath the ground”. It is a reminder that the pursuit of oil has always, it seems, come with a very high price attached.

Who made us laugh in 2015? The answer is a collection of hilarious women: Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect 2), Amy Schumer (Trainwreck), Melissa McCarthy (Spy) and Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (Sisters). The men tanked: be it the cast of Entourage for the flop movie version of the TV show, Adam Sandler and his cronies in Pixels or Ed Helms in Vacation.

Well, here comes a rearguard effort from two of Hollywood’s biggest male stars – Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg – and it is the funniest film of the year. That is, if you like the kind of silliness that made such a big hit of We’re The Millers, which was also written by Sean Anders who wrote and directed Daddy’s Home. For Ferrell it is a return to domestic rivalry comedy after his so-so 2008 film Step Brothers, which pitted him against John C Reilly.

 



What we really need to maintain interest is human conflict



 

Daddy’s Home is much funnier, adroitly avoiding the pitfall that befell Stepbrothers: namely being a one-joke movie. These kinds of comedies are all about the execution and Daddy’s Home might easily have fizzled out well before the end. Instead, it maintains a stream of terrific gags thanks to sharp writing, amusing characterisation in even the smallest supporting roles (Thomas Haden Church is a hoot as Ferrell’s idiotic radio station boss) and a plot that maintains the tension and surprise to the end.

The idea is fun and inherently silly: a perfectly cast Ferrell plays Brad, the somewhat square and squeaky clean stepfather to the young boy and girl who are the children of his wife Sarah (Linda Cardellini) by her first marriage to absent Dusty (an equally well cast Wahlberg). As he tells us in voiceover, he always dreamed of being a father and, unable to conceive his own children after an unfortunate X-ray incident at the dentist, he raises the children as his own.

 



Daddy’s Home might easily have fizzled out well before the end

 

All he wants is for them to call him “Dad”. It is a moment that finally arrives, much to his jubilation, only for Dusty to re-enter their lives. Coming to stay for a week, the too-coolfor-school Dusty is soon wooing his children with his Harley Davidson, building an eye-popping treehouse and keeping them hooked with an exciting bedtime story about a “king who has finally come back to the castle to reclaim his crown”.

Ferrell and Wahlberg extract every laugh in their gladiatorial dad-combat and there are some laugh-out-loud set-pieces, including Brad’s disastrous attempt to impress his children during a national basketball game. Icky sentiment is avoided, even as the inevitable happy ending arrives.