Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: In the Heart of the Sea

I knew that Herman Melville's novel MOBY DICK was based on actual incidents, but I didn't really know the story behind it. IN THE HEART OF THE SEA spins that yarn, the tale of the real-life whaling ship Essex and its encounter with, you guessed it, a great white whale. How accurate it is, I don't know, but I thought it was a well-done, old-fashioned adventure movie, not surprising since it was directed by Ron Howard, who is very much an old-fashioned director whose work has often reminded me of the movies made by Howard Hawks. Chris Hemsworth stars in this one as the first mate of the Essex, and I tend to like him, too. IN THE HEART OF THE SEA bombed at the box office and got mostly bad reviews, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

4 comments:

Adventuresfantastic said...

I really liked the movie, too. About 10 minutes into it, I realized I had a copy of the book someone at work had set out for whoever wanted it. So I read the book. I liked it better than the movie, and I loked the movie quite a bit. The film took some liberties with the story, especially where the whale was concerned. It didn't follow them in the book, just rammed the ship. The film also down-played the cannibalism that occurred in the lifeboats. I learned a lot from the book and will probably read more by the author

jrlindermuth said...

I've read the book. Waiting to see the movie.

August West said...

I believe if this movie was released 15-20 years ago it would have been a smash hit. I liked both the book and the movie. It seemed the studios put a good amount of advertising into this film. Unfortunately mass movie audiences today are not very interested in these epics.

Bill O said...

Sometimes filmmakers have to ask first, "Who's gonna go to this?" The new Tarzan looks as if it also should've considered that.