The Sea Beast
Year: 2022
Rating: PG
Length: 115 minutes / 1.92 hours
It’s weird how there’s been such a shift in CG animated films that something like The Sea Beast (2022) feels like they made it years ago. The realism in CGI has reached a point where movies from studios that aren’t Disney, Pixar, or DreamWorks look gorgeous. Since there’s been a leveling of what animated films can look like, the plot has become more important to these kinds of films. Unfortunately, while The Sea Beast looks great, its plot feels derivative of How to Train Your Dragon (2010), just with pirate-like characters instead of Vikings.
That there aren’t a ton of sea-faring stories out there, let alone animated ones, makes The Sea Beast a unique setting. With so many fantasy worlds set in medieval Europe, basing one off the slightly more modern sailing age feels fresh. I’m a little surprised that there weren’t more inventive uses of the technology of that era, since the monsters were much more sizable than the ones from the real-world timeframe. Even the “new technology” that made the hunters obsolete just felt like a standard ship with some increased firepower.
Aside from the main character (voiced by Karl Urban), most of the characters in The Sea Beast didn’t feel particularly memorable. I appreciated some of the hinted backstories for the characters without diving deep into flashbacks, but that should be standard world-building for any fantasy world like this. I’m not wild about plots that make advancements in technology (which might save lives in hazardous situations) out as villains. However, the only reason it’s really acceptable here is due to the other cliché plot about nature only being dangerous when it’s threatened by humans. Still, if you can ignore some of these things, The Sea Beast is a fun adventure.
A somewhat derivative but gorgeously animated adventure, I give The Sea Beast 3.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
