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In the Heart of the Sea: Mini-review

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Chris Hemsworth

Chris Hemsworth on dry land, not In the Heart of the Sea

C+At the heart of Ron Howard‘s In the Heart of the Sea is an often breathtaking, well-made film about 19th century whaling, nautical disaster, and survival under harrowing conditions. For some reason, however, Howard has seen fit to overload his cinematic vessel with numerous weak subplots and factual inaccuracies and, to top it off, a leaden performance by woefully miscast leading man Chris Hemsworth. As a result, the movie adds far too much baggage and nearly founders.

Heart of the Sea, based on an acclaimed non-fiction best seller by Nathaniel Philbrick, purports to be the story of the whaling ship Essex, which sank in the Galapagos Islands in 1820 after being rammed by a white sperm whale. A handful of survivors, including Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) and First Mate Owen Chase (Hemsworth), were rescued from the ship’s whaling boats after spending over three months adrift. Chase’s account of the voyage inspired Herman Melville‘s Moby Dick. 

The actual story of the voyage of the Essex and its aftermath (only a portion of which Heart of the Sea recounts) is so fascinating that Howard had no need to embellish it. Indeed, his depiction of life on the whaler is quite powerful, especially the thrilling CGI effects work. Howard captures the excitement, danger, and cruelty of whaling, as the crew risks their lives in flimsy whaleboats trying to harpoon and slaughter the giant animals for the oil that can be obtained from their blubber. Despite having more than a single movie’s worth of great source material, Charles Leavitt‘s screenplay adds as much fiction to the tale as Melville did, but not nearly as well. Heart of the Sea  begins with and periodically returns to the historically inaccurate and completely unnecessary framing device of Herman Melville ( Ben Whishaw) persuading the supposed last survivor of the Essex, cabin boy Thomas Nickerson (played by Tom Holland during the voyage and Brendan Gleeson as an older man), to tell his story. Later, the movie adds, then conveniently drops, a bitter disagreement over seamanship between Chase and Pollard and a cover-up by the ship’s owners of what actually occurred on the voyage. These extraneous subplots merely serve as time-consuming distractions and highlight Chris Hemsworth’s lame attempts at both a New England accent and serious acting. Watch In the Heart of the Sea for its first-rate action sequences; if you want a first-rate dramatic treatment of the same source material, read Moby Dick instead.  
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Spectre: Mini-review

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Daniel Craig

Daniel Craig looking suave

B-Since Daniel Craig replaced Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, he has appeared in two of the very best and one of the very worst films in the franchise. Now, in all probability, he bids farewell to 007 in Spectre, a film that seems destined to wind up in the seemingly vast expanse of middling Bond adventures.

As any Bond buff knows, SPECTRE is the international supercriminal organization that has opposed Bond many times over the years. However, the producers essentially reinvented the Bond franchise in 2006’s Casino Royale, and, as a result, Craig’s version of Bond only now learns of SPECTRE and discovers it has been responsible for much of his misery in the last three films. Aided by Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), daughter of one of his old enemies, Bond goes after Spectre’s shadowy leader, Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz), aka Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Unlike earlier Bond films, the Craig movies have treated 007 as a comic book superhero with his own essentially tragic mythos. Spectre tries to wrap up all the loose ends and give the series some dramatic closure, but its execution is often faulty, especially the contest between Bond and Blofeld. It makes no sense to cast a two-time Oscar winner as Blofeld and then keep him almost entirely offscreen for three-quarters of the overly long, slow-paced movie. Worse, when Waltz does reappear, he becomes almost a Dr. Evil parody of Blofeld, strapping Bond into a futuristic torture chair, then blathering at length to give Bond ample opportunity to turn the tables. Up until that point, Spectre is a mix of often spectacular set pieces with somber interludes that border on being lethargic. An opening sequence in Mexico featuring a lengthy tracking shot may be the best Bond opener yet, and there’s a great fight sequence on a train with Blofeld’s muscular henchman Dave Bautista. However, Spectre never recovers from the disappointing initial showdown between Craig and Waltz. After that, the film seems to shrink to almost a TV-movie level, as if the budget, as well as the principal actors’ interest, ran out at that point. Fortunately, even if Craig has bid farewell to Bond, the franchise has some solid supporting players in place including Ralph Fiennes as M, Ben Whishaw as Q, and Naomie Harris as Moneypenny, while Spectre‘s ending leaves the door open for a sequel. James Bond may stumble a bit at the end of this overly ambitious film, but 007 will definitely go on.  
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Paddington: Mini-Review

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Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman has a lot of fun as the villain in Paddington

B+The funniest and most charming family Christmas movie of 2014 wasn’t actually released in 2014. Instead, for some reason, while the studios paraded Annie and the latest Night at the Museum movie before parents,  Paddington was delayed and dumped into theaters in the annual January burial ground. Fortunately, this gives parents something to enjoy along with their children through the rest of the winter.

Based on the popular children’s books, Paddington is the story of a young talking bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw) whose aunt sends him to London to find a new home. He is taken in, temporarily at first, by kindly Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins) and her more cautious husband Henry (Hugh Bonneville), who is concerned about Padington’s tendency to get into trouble. Naturally, however, Henry eventually has a change of heart, especially after Paddington is bearnapped by the director of the Natural History Museum (Nicole Kidman), who thinks that a stuffed and mounted Paddington will make a prize exhibit.

Paddington is that rare family film that is genuinely warm and charming without pandering, and it doesn’t hit viewers over the head with its lessons about family. Some of the slapstick humor will be too childish for adults, but director Paul King lets the set pieces play out slowly, letting Paddington gradually get himself into an even bigger mess. He also includes a number of quite clever jokes aimed squarely at the adults in the audience. Plus, from a technical standpoint, the CGI work is nearly flawless; the computer-generated Paddington blends in smoothly with the live actors. Paddington is one movie whose trailers don’t do it justice; it more than bears watching by viewers of all ages.
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