nathaniel philbrick in the heart of the sea review

Rolling across the world from its Australian opening this week and looking to hit the US quickly on December 11 before Star Wars docks, In The Heart Of The Sea will attempt to scale up from Howard’s 2013 Formula 1 drama Rush, which first teamed the director with Thor’s Chris Hemsworth.īut without much of a pulse in its characters, In The Heart Of The Sea will ebb and flow for Warner Bros on the strength of its tense and lavish action sequences, beautifully presented with a dramatic Turner-esque palette by British cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle ( Slumdog Millionaire). This reworking of Nathaniel Philbrick’s novel – which tracked the real-life story behind Herman Melville’s 19 th century classic - is both bloody and viscous, but parched human characterisation beaches the film throughout.Ĭharacters are reduced to skeleton status: giant narrative whale ribs across the screen with little flesh on the bones.

Rising up with the whale to deliver edge-of-the-seat set-pieces full of salt and spit, director Ron Howard pulls his epic together with lashes so tight they strain at the posts. Some stirring, old-fashioned spectacle helps lift this Moby Dick origins story from what might otherwise have been a watery grave.

Nathaniel philbrick in the heart of the sea review