Netflix’s ‘The Sea Beast’s’ Monster Battle Is Better Than All of ‘Jurassic World Dominion’

Sorry to Jurassic World: Dominion, but Netflix’s The Sea Beast—which began streaming yesterday—has the best monster battle scene of 2022. It’s true that you wouldn’t expect an animated movie for children—brought to you by the same guy who directed Moana, Big Hero 6, and Bolt—to have the most seat-gripping, hair-raising creature battle of the year. And yet, it’s also true that it absolutely does.

Directed by Chris Williams, The Sea Beast tells the tale of a legendary sea monster hunter named Jacob Holland (voiced by Karl Urban) who, much to his annoyance, ends up caring for a stowaway girl named Maisie (voiced by Zaris-Angel Hator). Maisie is an orphan of sea monster hunters, and she yearns for her own adventure. She gets her wish when, while attempting to kill the infamous “Red Bluster” sea monster, Jacob and Maisie are thrown overboard and whisked away from their crew in the mouth of the beast itself. But rather than killing them, the monster—which Maisie later names Red—takes them to safety. More than that, Red defends them when another monster threatens their lives.

Williams, who co-wrote the screenplay with Nell Benjamin, clearly drew inspiration from monster movie classics like King Kong and Godzilla, and nowhere is that more clear than in the epic battle between Red and the monster who threatens Maisie. The camera whirls dramatically as a giant, forbidding, purple crab monster rises out of the sea. But not so fast: Red—huge, simple, and thunderous in all ways this crab is spiky, complex, and spry—looms over the monster, and lets out a terrible roar. And then the battle is on.

It’s everything you want from a proper, cinematic monster fight. There’s a clear winner to root for (Red) and real lives at stake (Maisie and Jacob). More importantly, it’s freakin’ badass. There’s never a moment when there’s not something interesting to both see and hear on the screen. There are growls, roars, and splashes, as the two creatures lunge at each other in the water. When the crab escapes to the land, Red viscerally drags her giant horn through the side of a cliff. When Red gets a bite out of the crab, it’s with a satisfying crunch. And the best part? Unlike the recent Jurassic World movie, this battle is delightfully well-lit and does not take place in the conveniently blurry rain, because it’s not held back by the limitations of realistic VFX. By the time Red triumphantly flings the crab far, far away with a flick of her powerful neck, you’ll be out of your seat cheering.

Apologies to Colin Trevorrow, but this cartoon critter clash got my blood pumping far more than any of the dino fights in Jurassic World Dominion. Prehistoric bugs? Really? Nah. I’ll stick to this beautifully animated, epic fantasy sea battle. Congratulations to The Sea Beast for pulling off the most epic monster fight of the year.