Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

In the Heart of the Sea Blu-ray Movie Review

Fishy Story

Reviewed by Michael Reuben March 9, 2016

Director Ron Howard's In the Heart of the Sea isn't a bad movie, but it isn't a very good one either. Based on a famous 19th Century maritime catastrophe, the film suffers from an identity crisis. It purports to tell the true story of the 1820 sinking of the whaling ship Essex and the harrowing escape of its surviving officers and crew, which was the subject of author Nathaniel Philbrick's 2000 book of the same title. But Howard also wants to capture some of the grandeur and mystery of Moby-Dick, the great American novel by Herman Melville that drew on the Essex disaster for inspiration (along with multiple other sources). Moby-Dick has been adapted for screen and TV many times, most famously by John Huston in the 1956 film starring Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. Howard's film isn't Melville's novel, but it tries to borrow some of that classic's epic cachet by inserting Melville into the story. With a script by Charles Leavitt (Blood Diamond), In the Heart of the Sea (or "ItHotS") vacillates between a dramatization of the Essex disaster and a covert remake of Moby-Dick—and fails at both tasks.

ItHotS shoehorns Moby-Dick into its supposedly true story with a "framing device" that never happened. In 1850, writer Herman Melville (Ben Wishaw, badly miscast) tracks down the former cabin boy of the Essex, Thomas Nickerson, who is the only living survivor of the disaster. Nickerson is played by Brendan Gleeson as an adult and by Tom Holland (Wolf Hall) as the lad who went to sea. The real Nickerson did indeed write a late-life memoir about his experiences, but he never met Melville, who learned about the Essex through an account by First Mate Owen Chase published shortly after Chase returned to Nantucket in 1821. In Howard's film, though, Melville's effort to pry painful memories from Nickerson becomes half the story. Michelle Fairley (24: Live Another Day) has the thankless job of playing the wife who forces her husband to spill his secrets for both the good of his soul and the fee that Melville is offering.

Although the film's Melville doesn't even remotely resemble the real author, the scenes between Melville and Nickerson might still work if they merely bookended the film. But ItHotS keeps interrupting its tale of the Essex's final voyage to cut back to the author and his source, as if their conversations are meant to infuse an already remarkable tale with some larger meaning. It's not clear, though, what that meaning is supposed to be. In the film, Melville expresses doubts about his ability to do justice to the story, but the real Melville never attempted to tell the story of the Essex. He invented a fictional ship, the Pequod, which he transformed into a microcosm of the world, with a fictional crew and a captain so bent on revenge that his very name, Ahab, has become synonymous with obsession. Melville didn't even use the second half of the Essex history, in which the survivors of the ship's sinking endure unimaginable hardships before their ultimate rescue. His tale of Ahab's self-destructive quest ends with the captain's death and the destruction of his vessel, after which the novel's narrator, Ishmael, is quickly found by a passing ship.

No such memorable characters appear in the flashbacks through which ItHotS tells the story of the Essex. Howard assembles a crew defined by broad strokes or, in many cases, none at all. The experienced first mate, Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth, Thor), has left a pregnant wife (Charlotte Riley) behind him and chafes at being passed over for the captaincy of the Essex because of class prejudice and the fact that he's not a native son of Nantucket. The captain, George Pollard (Benjamin Walker, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), is the scion of a prominent naval family, who has been given the rank because of connections rather than merit and suffers Captain Queeg-like insecurity, coupled with distrust of the more experienced men under his command, including (indeed, especially) Chase. Nickerson, the cabin boy, is a frightened kid eager to please, and one would be hard-pressed to describe the other crew as anything more than generic seaman, although they're played by such capable actors as Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins), Frank Dillane (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ) and Joseph Mawle (Ripper Street).

Rather than develop the characters, ItHotS relies on action sequences and special effects to create a sense of awe: a deadly squall that nearly swamps the ship, the voyage's first killing of a whale and, of course, the sinking of the Essex by a huge sperm whale, after the ship has left the fished-out waters of the Atlantic and sailed into the unknown reaches of the Pacific seeking a bountiful harvest of which they learn from a Spanish captain they meet in Ecuador, Clemente Pelaez (Jordi Mollà). Though he appears on screen only briefly, Captain Pelaez is one of the more memorable characters in the film, because he has both the physical injuries and the scarred demeanor to suggest a tale worthy of Melville. The film's Melville tells the audience that he's "haunted" by the history of the Essex, but Pelaez shows what it means to have encountered something so huge and horrifying that it has transformed him.

The film's second half depicts the part of the story that Melville omitted, as the survivors of the Essex waste away in lifeboats, thirsting under a merciless sun and starving to the point where they resort to cannibalism. As grim as the circumstances become, ItHotS never gives the characters an opportunity to reveal themselves. The reconciliation between the feuding Captain Pollard and First Mate Chase feels halting and perfunctory. Even the periodic reappearance of the whale that sank the ship, with the suggestion that the hunters have now become the hunted, fails to generate any wonder or introspection. When Pollard and Chase ultimately return to Nantucket, they look weather-beaten but otherwise unchanged, and Howard's last-minute attempt to extract drama from the question of whether they'll participate in a cover-up for the good of the whaling trade falls flat. The effects are more memorable than the characters: computer-generated whales, pitching decks, crumbling masts, cascades of water, men plunged into the sea. ItHotS is an action film in 19th Century garb that the director and screenwriter have tried to elevate into something more by having stick figures named "Melville" and "Nickerson" repeatedly tell the audience (and each other) how profoundly meaningful it all is.

In the Heart of the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

In the Heart of the Sea was shot digitally by Anthony Dod Mantle, an Oscar winner for Slumdog Millionaire. According to IMDb, the film was finished on a 2K digital intermediate, which is something to bear in mind when Warner Brothers' 4K UHD version arrives later this year. Meanwhile, we have the 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which faithfully reproduces the film's meticulously color-corrected historical re-creations. The 1850 scenes between Melville and Nickerson feature dark, saturated hues, while the episodes from thirty years earlier are dominated by faded greens, blues and browns to convey the weather-beaten Port of Nantucket and the activities of whalers at sea. The image is finely detailed, except in scenes where it is deliberately obscured (usually by water from either sea or sky), and blacks are well-rendered (e.g., the Pilgrim-style costumes of the islanders praying for their loved ones' safe return and the darkness below deck). The brief sequence in Ecuador has been given a yellowish cast with a slightly grainy texture to convey the tropical climate. The digital trickery necessary to create the illusion of the ship's isolation on distant seas and the massive whale that destroys the Essex has been smoothly integrated with the live action.

Continuing its practice of low bitrates for new theatrical releases, Warner has mastered ItHotS at an average bitrate of 23.66 Mbps. Minor artifacts can sometimes be observed in chaotic scenes of disaster aboard ship, but they may pass unnoticed in the rapid edits. Had Warner used the additional 5 GB of space left empty on the disc, these might have been eliminated altogether.

In the Heart of the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

ItHotS arrives on Blu-ray with a Dolby Atmos track that is by far the disc's best feature. The sounds of life aboard ship come alive from all directions, including overhead, with wind, sail, ropes and creaking wood constantly weaving in and out of the story. The sound of the huge whales rising from the water and diving again, and the flying spray in their wake, have appropriate volume and grandeur, and the impact of the "white" whale that sinks the ship by ramming it repeatedly has force and authority, as does the conflagration when the ship's store of whale oil ignites and turns the dying vessel into its own funeral pyre. The occasional scenes on shore (e.g., in Ecuador or on an island where the survivors temporarily take refuge) are more restrained but equally atmospheric.

The dialogue in ItHotS is a mixed bag, because several of the actors, especially Hemsworth's Chase, have adopted a peculiar accent that is apparently meant to represent New Englanders of the era. I can't comment on its authenticity, but it frequently interferes with intelligibility, though that is no fault of the sound reproduction. In any case, the dialogue is so much a secondary element in this film that it hardly matters. The lush orchestral score by Roque Baños (the remake of Oldboy) does its best to fill in the sweeping sense of wonder and mystery that the film so desperately wants to evoke.

In the Heart of the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Ron Howard: Captain's Log (1080p; 1.78:1; 15:50).
• Intro
• Location Scout
• First Day of Filming
• Into the Tank
• Controlled Chaos
• Out to Sea
• Getting in Ship Shape
• Production Wrap
• Editorial and Score
• Journey's End


• Chase & Pollard: A Man of Means and a Man of Courage (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:28).


• The Hard Life of a Whaler (1080p; 1.78:1; 8:44).


• Whale Tales: Melville's Untold Story (1080p; 1.78:1; 9:13).


• Commanding the Heart of the Sea (1080p; 1.78:1; 10;25).


• Lightning Strikes Twice: The Real-Life Sequel to Moby-Dick (28:59).


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 1.85:1; 36:02):
• Spanish Sailor
• Dockside Goodbye
• Loading the Essex
• Essex Sets Sail
• Hard Life at Sea
• Mooning Midas
• Cole & Chappel Fight
• Men Argue
• Bump in the Night
• Pollard Suicide Moment
• Chase Trapped Under Mast
• Catching Wind
• Barz Body
• Chase Rescues Pollard
• Pollard & Chase Goodbye
• Graveyard


• Extended Scenes (1080p; 1.85:1; 7:11):
• Peggy Chase House
• Bringing More Whiskey
• Singing Sailors
• Chase, Near Death


• Island Montage (1080p; 1.85:1; 3:07).


• Bonus Trailer: The film's trailer is not included. At startup, the disc plays a trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, followed by the usual Warner promo for digital copies.

In the Heart of the Sea Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The tale of the Essex is a remarkable story. It offers the high adventure of a shipwreck and prolonged effort at rescue. It provides a window into the life of whalers at sea and an overview of a colorful, bygone industry that, as several of the characters note, provided light and fuel to the world in the era before gas and oil. There's even the possibility of a Captain Bligh/Mr. Christian conflict in the characters of Pollard and Chase (an option with which ItHotS flirts but doesn't develop). Above all, the story provides an opportunity to explore both the hubris of human illusions that nature can be mastered and the intimate drama of conflict and cooperation among individuals pushed to the edge—the same explosive mixture that James Cameron exploited so effectively in Titanic. Howard's film touches on all of these elements, then shortchanges them in an effort to invest the story with Melville's profundity. He would have been better off remaking Moby-Dick. A decent Blu-ray, especially for the audio, but not recommended as a film.