Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Sea Beast’ on Netflix, an Animated Delight That’ll Show You How to Train Your Kraken

For animated adventure The Sea Beast, Netflix poached director Chris Williams from Disney, where he had a creative hand in several biggies, including Big Hero 6, Wreck-it Ralph, Moana and Frozen. This is his first solo directorial effort, the story of a beast who isn’t a monster – there’s a difference, you know – that might inspire plushie and kiddie fast-food meal sales if it were a Disney property. It does answer a key question as to whether the magic of the Mouse House can truly be replicated elsewhere, for this one might be the best from Netflix’s animation studio yet.

THE SEA BEAST: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: In a world called Hither, or perhaps Yon, and one that resembles our own, ca. the 1700s or so, save for its massive undersea carnivorous organisms that seem even bigger than the biggest whale, humans and sea monsters were at war, for eons. The tales of great hunters slaying horrible beasts live in books chronicling history up to the current day, when brave seafarers still sail the seas, questing to put very pointy things into the very soft parts of their living bounty. Young Maisie Brumble (voice of Zaris-Angel Hator) reads these books in the orphanage. Then she steals out the window, never to be seen again, or perhaps just until she re-emerges as a stowaway on one of those very ships. Not that I’m saying she does! She just very much might.

That ship is the Inevitable, identified by its red sails, its famous eyepatch’d Captain Crow (Jared Harris) and the unquenchable collective lust of those on board to murder one specific beast known as the Red Bluster. That very animal is the reason for the eyepatch, so it’s very, very personal, leading one to wonder if this Ahab needs a little psychological rehab. By Crow’s side is strapping young Jacob Holland (Karl Urban), a fearless hunter, and Sarah Sharpe (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), of steely reserve and pegged leg. No group is better at hunting the giant fish or whatever they are. No one.

What with the desires of a king and queen in a gilded tower Above It All, the independent vessel Inevitable competes to slaughter the Red Bluster, against a Royal ship from the Royal fleet that surely Royally sucks and is armed with, goodness gracious, great walls of cannons. Crow is singularly obsessed, and when he succeeds, because he will, he’ll hand the ship over to Jacob to captain. This is about when Maisie turns up so everyone may try to put her away, unable to see that she’s the Plot Catalyst destined to capsize so many long-held things. In a moment that seems far too early in the movie for a climactic showdown, the Inevitable clashes with the Red Bluster, who, by gosh, seems to have more than just a hint of curiosity and intelligence in its eyes, if you stop trying to kill it long enough to look? This development leads to a Pinocchio moment and a Totoro moment and a tossed-off Alien reference and also, of all things, a Bible moment, all involving Jacob and Maisie, whose destinies don’t turn out to be quite what they thought.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Sea Beast feels like a hybrid of Disney and Dreamworks Animation aesthetics. It takes many cues from Dreamworks’ best property, How to Train Your Dragon, and crosses over with the delightful non-musical elements of Frozen and Moana.

Performance Worth Watching: The voice cast is solid and gets the job done unremarkably. So let’s hand this accolade to the character designers, who created some truly wonder-inspiring creatures, which perfectly toe the line between cute and terrifying.

Memorable Dialogue: Best name for a ship ever: “My god, it’s the Inevitable!”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Without giving away too much, the most inspired story element of The Sea Beast is the great objective Maisie unwittingly stumbles over: tossing pointless long-held traditions into the hoary deeps in the name of progress. More specifically, but also more broadly, it’s a quest for peace over violence. Controversially, it requires that one disregard history books, especially ones written by the powerful for a specific agenda, although what that is exactly isn’t quite clear, and where the story starts to take on some water.

But we’re not here to take a kid flick all too seriously, even one that’s smart like recent Disney entries (I’m thinking Raya and the Last Dragon and Zootopia, two more with Williams’ name in the credits). The Sea Beast is a movie about a hero provoked by a young moppet to consider adopting a different type of heroism, and their highly amusing interactions with awesome and/or adorable fauna, one of which looks like Stitch if he was Aquaman’s sidekick and crossed with Baby Yoda but also one of the miniature Totoros. It’s the type of creature that prompts merchandise marketers to lose their minds with joy.

The film presents a significant conundrum for Netflix in that I was disappointed to be watching it at home. Its scale outsizes our TVs. Williams oversees the type of imagery that belongs on the biggest screen possible, and to compress the presentation is to shrink-dry our awe and hang it on the living room wall (or worse, squeeze it onto our tablets or phones). The ships, creatures, backgrounds and set pieces are thoughtfully considered, gorgeously designed works of artistry; the action sequences are thrilling, suspenseful, wrought with skill and technique. Maybe the happy medium here is our ability to pause and rewind and lean in closely to admire such things.

The Sea Beast is often predictable, with the underdogs, the small people, raising their voices for truth, and maybe realizing that killing things that seem to have enough sentience to realize they’re fighting an age-old war isn’t the answer. You’ll see some of these story developments coming from a league or two away, thar she blows, but they’re shot through with enough warmth, optimism and intellectual sophistication to render them more than welcome. It’s a story that challenges its characters to make a tough decision: take the easy, familiar path or the difficult, more righteous one? I wonder if putting this visually rich movie into theaters isn’t the latter choice.

Our Call: The Sea Beast is a vibrant, funny, terrifically entertaining family film. STREAM IT, and then be happy to oblige when your kid wants to STREAM IT again.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.

Stream The Sea Beast on Netflix