I am a huge fan of Moby Dick. I've taught it as a novel; I've read it several times. Its artistry is beyond measure. Herman Melville certainly knew his stuff when it came to whaling and the sea. Apparently, Melville gained his inspiration from a particular whaling voyage that produced fodder for his imagination. This film takes the fictional Melville back to the time where he heard the story of the white whale. If one looks at the book as the allegory it is, we put the stamp of whiteness and all the implications of the color (or lack of it) that it implies. This movie takes any artistry out of the story. Ahab lost his leg and pursues the elusive cetacean in the ultimate act of revenge. Here, a bunch of guys get in over their heads. They had an overzealous captain who simply was out for the commercial value of the animal. When the whale destroys the ship (they do give him supernatural powers) part of the crew is in whaleboats, trying to get someplace safe. Terrible things happen, including cannablism, and some manage to hold off their fates till they are rescued. But there is something dull about the pacing of the story. We aren't made privy to much of what goes on among them. There are the obligatory sacrifices that are not new to this genre. It's a decent movie, but a better script and some more personal depth would have helped.

I am a huge fan of films dealing with this general time period and several of my favorite media works are about men combating the seas under the press of sail. I think this film is a good example of the genre. It is an engaging in an old-fashioned sort of way while having top notch production values. I do think the film is a little bit episodic and a bit strained. That cannibalism is treated as the ultimate horror of the story comes a bit out of left field; the climatic sequence lands less horrifying than how the filmmakers intended. I also wish the film downplayed the Moby Dick connection as the story stands on its own without leaning into inspiring Melville-this is a bigger deal than might be apparent because either Tom Holland or Brendan Gleeson is miscast as they do not seem like the same man.

The film captures the visceral aspects of whaling; an early sequence of processing a whale for its usable parts is probably the best part of the film. It comes across as authentic and those images stay with you. This is a engaging film; It could have been better.

The story is about the Essex, a whaling ship that was, amazingly, sunk by a whale. The story is told through a flashback from one of the survivors of the journey and follows them from just before the cruise through their eventual rescue and return to Nantucket.

While "In the Heart of the Sea" is a bit overlong, it is a tremendously well made film. The script, not surprisingly, takes a few liberties with the actual story but is, overall, essentially factual*. But what really blew me away was the look of the film-- the 1820 New England landscape, the ship and the whale attacks. While you know that most of this was done using CGI, you simply cannot tell by looking at it...it looks so amazingly real.

*Several liberties were taken. A big one is the way the story is told--by the one survivor of the Essex affair back in 1950 who relates his story to Herman Melville. Well, this didn't happen...but it does make for a neat way to tell the story, so I didn't mind this. Additionally, First Mate Chase and his post-Essex life are COMPLETELY different from the way they're portrayed in the film. In each case, the changes were made to make the film more cinematic and enjoyable but also remind you that the actual story is a tad different.