6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Based on the 1820 event, a whaling ship is preyed upon by a sperm whale, stranding its crew at sea for 90 days, thousands of miles from home.
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Ben WhishawAdventure | 100% |
Biography | 20% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
English DD 5.1=descriptive audio
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
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.
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.
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.
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.
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