The Sea Beast Review

The Sea Beast Review

The Sea Beast was a Netflix original movie from last year that received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. And I decided to watch it for my ranking of the Best Animated Feature nominees. What did I think about it? Does it deserve a best animated feature nomination? Let’s get started!

The Good:

As this is an animated movie, you have to talk about the animation style. And for this movie, I thought Netflix nailed it. The animation style is quite stunning and gorgeous to look at. It’s so colorful and bright that it pops and stands out. And it’s truly stunning to look at, so much so that I think this is one of the best looking animated movies of 2022. Certainly one of the more colorful animated movies of 2022. And while I was watching it, I was trying to figure out what the animation style reminded me of and I couldn’t really think of anything. I’m sure that could be one, I’m just not thinking about it at the moment. But it does stand out with its animation style as something really cool and unique to watch. 

Another thing is that the story here I thought was very good and tackled very well. A common comparison for this movie is the original How to Train Your Dragon movie. And I heard that going into this movie, and now watching it, that's a fair comparison. There are some differences there, but it’s a fair comparison to How to Train Your Dragon. And I thought this film tackled the story much better than in How to Train Your Dragon. That movie I had a lot of issues with the father character and how he reacted to certain situations in the movie. This movie didn’t have the character that frustrated me on the level that How to Train Your Dragon did. And I thought with making the characters these sea beast hunters, was a better way to tell this type of story. 

Also the movie has characters that you like and care about, and I thought they were very well rounded in this movie. The movie is led by Jacob Holland voiced by Karl Urban, a member of the sea beast hunting group and this little girl named Maisie. And they have a fun chemistry between them, both are annoyed by each other for different reasons. While they clearly do have a respect for another at the same time. The villain of the movie voiced by Jared Harris is a great villain to the movie, they spend a lot of time with him. He’s very complex in his motive and backstory that makes him this very interesting character. And as you move into the finale of the movie, you understand why he’s doing certain things. 

And also as the title character is a sea beast creature, and the story being told here you have to like the creature. And this is a fun and charming creature, you like him. When he gets hurt or kidnapped you don’t like it. I don’t think he’s the most fun and charming creature in these types of stories, but he does fit the story well and fulfill the purpose of the story. He does kind of look like Toothless if Toothless was a big red sea beast. 

Finally, the movie does have a nice sense of humor about it. It’s not a bunch of fart jokes and poop jokes that will only entertain little kids. The humor is well balanced so both kids and adults will get some entertainment value out of it. 

The Bad:

For being an animated movie, it’s much longer than most animated movies. The movie is 1 hour and 55 minutes long, and I felt like the movie could have been trimmed down a bit. I think the middle act particularly dragged a bit for me. The first and third acts are quite exciting and good, but the middle act is really where I thought the movie slowed down a good bit for me. And the middle act felt the most formulaic to me. Where it’s the two leads of the movie are stranded on an island and they have to learn to work together and like each other. It’s the most formulaic and mundane part of the movie for me. 

Also the movie introduces some ideas about kings and queens hiring the pirates to hunt sea beasts. And that part of the story felt very underdeveloped and not given enough screen time. I think there are some interesting ideas presented in the movie that aren’t explored to it’s fullest potential. It doesn’t make the movie bad for me, but it is something that I did notice while watching the movie.

Final Thoughts: The Sea Beast is a solid animated movie with stunning animation. A familiar story that is handled very well and a better version of the story template then How to Train Your Dragon. The main set of characters are a lot of fun and very fleshed out and well rounded. It’s not a top tier animated movie for me, but it’s a solid fun adventure to watch with the entire family. 

The Score: 8.4/10 (B)