Ed's Review Dot Com

Village Roadshow Pictures, Cott Productions, Enelmar Productions, A.I.E.,

Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw, Jordi Mollà

Author Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) travels far to the home of Tom Nickerson (Ben Whishaw) who is a recluse, a drunkard, and a man who despises talking about things, but mostly not a word about The Essex. Melville is planning his new novel, Moby Dick, and is trying to find out the true story of a legend of The Essex, one of New England’s most famous whaling ships that was destroyed and the crew in lifeboats spending nearly 3 months trying to get back to the coast of South America. The official story was that it ran aground, but the legend persisted. Tom Nickerson was a young teenager on his first voyage and was the last living survivor of the Essex. The Nickersons are in deep financial trouble and Melville offers everything he has for the story. Tom begins the true story of what happened to the Essex and a confrontation with the monstrous white whale that destroyed the ship and caused a very horrible ordeal of shipwreck. Told in flashback we learn about unprepared Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Wlaker) who was on his first voyage due to his long lineage in the whaling families. Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) was born the son of a farmer, and has spent his life as a sailor who was promised the Captain position but was forced by the families to take the first mate role instead. It’s Owen’s experience and wisdom of the sea that saves the few survivors after a horrendous ordeal that only was survived by a handful of sailors including Tom Nickerson.

I do not know the factual story of Herman Melville’s visit to Tom Nickerson, but I have read “In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick which was published 15 years ago. This was a spectacular book. Basically, based on as much truth as possible, this book tells the true story of an amazing whale that took down one of the best fitted whaling ships of the time. The fact that Herman Melville used the true story of this disaster as the basis for his fantastic novel Moby Dick is true. This is an amazing story, and the trouble endured by the sailor set adrift in the middle of the Pacific where there are often no winds, 3000 miles from the coast of South America, is truly horrible. The sailors had to make some hard decisions to manage to survive at all, and this, back in the 19th Century (the Essex sunk in 1820) certainly was troubling to the religious tone of the day and caused a great deal of concern. Ron Howard and his usual gang produced this epic film, and though it had a smaller than expected week in the box office, everyone waiting for Star Wars next week certainly had an effect on the gross. I really hope the traffic will pick up as soon as the Star Wars circus is over, as this is a very, very well done film. This film is showing in 3-D and IMAX, but I watched it on a regular screen and it was very stunning. The cinematography was excellent, and it is an amazingly true story that is, in this case, better than fiction. I have always had the yearning for the life of a sailor as it looks very romantic, but after seeing the realism of what life was like on a whaling ship in 1820 I did not think this through. There are a number of scenes like the infamous Nantucket sleigh ride when the rowboats take off when a whale is harpooned and takes the men for quite a ride, the work of cutting up and boiling down a captured whale, and the horror on the little lifeboats that will haunt you for quite a while. These are stunning and extremely well filmed and full of detail. Chris Hemsworth does a spectacular job as Owen Chase, and all in all the script is fabulous, the actors are great, the presentation is about perfect, and it a whale of a tale. Do yourself a favor and see this one in the theater. This is a spectacular movie!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog