If you don't count his Dan Brown films, it has been a very long time since Ron Howard has made anything less than a solid entertaining film and this is no exception. Based on a true story that inspired Herman Melville's Moby Dick ITHOTS begins with Melville meeting up with the only still surviving member of the Whale Ship Essex, played by the always excellent Brenden Gleeson. Melville pays him to finally describe the events of 30 years earlier when he was a 14 year old crew member on his maiden voyage.I won't go into how it bugged me that using the historical time line. Gleeson could not have yet turned 50, because I am one of only a few geeks who would dwell on that.
I think this is Hemsworth's best role if for no other reason he does the DeNiro Raging Bull thing to his body. The characters starve at sea and it is hard to believe that CGI is not heavily involved with his appearance at the end of the film, but from what I have read apparently not. If Howard had made this film a decade ago, Russell Crowe would have had the Hemsworth role as the first mate. But Hemsworth does as well as I could have imagined Crowe in the role, and that is a compliment to his maturing as an actor.
A lot of interesting stuff about Whaling and the film is beautifully shot. I have a feeling that fans of the book will be a bit disappointed because it seems that certain aspects of the book were probably glossed over. If you want to see it in IMAX (which was not offered at my screening and which I thought was surprising and disappointing) then you had better catch this opening week. Something tells me that another film opening the following week is apt to hog up all the IMAX screens for a few weeks. I hope that does not hurt the box office for this film too, because it is a big screen epic.
My wife would not go with me because she did not want to see the cruelty to the whales, and there are some terrifically filmed and exciting hunting scenes, but I am one of those that kind of rooted for the whales as well. Heck, at the end of the day, one might say the Whale won.
I think this is Hemsworth's best role if for no other reason he does the DeNiro Raging Bull thing to his body. The characters starve at sea and it is hard to believe that CGI is not heavily involved with his appearance at the end of the film, but from what I have read apparently not. If Howard had made this film a decade ago, Russell Crowe would have had the Hemsworth role as the first mate. But Hemsworth does as well as I could have imagined Crowe in the role, and that is a compliment to his maturing as an actor.
A lot of interesting stuff about Whaling and the film is beautifully shot. I have a feeling that fans of the book will be a bit disappointed because it seems that certain aspects of the book were probably glossed over. If you want to see it in IMAX (which was not offered at my screening and which I thought was surprising and disappointing) then you had better catch this opening week. Something tells me that another film opening the following week is apt to hog up all the IMAX screens for a few weeks. I hope that does not hurt the box office for this film too, because it is a big screen epic.
My wife would not go with me because she did not want to see the cruelty to the whales, and there are some terrifically filmed and exciting hunting scenes, but I am one of those that kind of rooted for the whales as well. Heck, at the end of the day, one might say the Whale won.