My Review of "The Sea Beast"

The Sea Monster is a Netflix exclusive animated feature released in 2022. It's one of their better animated features as well. There's a lot of heart and lessons in this movie that a lot of kids can talk to their parents about when this movie is over. Some of the lessons can seem a bit preachy but it's a good conversation to have with kids about.

We start the movie off with a bit of an understanding of where the humans are at in this world. There are sea beasts roaming the seas and this is preventing everyone from navigating the waters. Countless tales have been told about how these sea beasts have viciously terrorized humans.

Now they have hunters that are commissioned to sail out to sea to slay these beasts. This is all narrated by our plucky hero Maisie. She's an orphan because her parents had died on a ship trying to hunt these beasts. Instead of being bummed out about her life Maisie intends to live her family legacy. She wants to become a hunter herself.

She sneaks out of the orphanage and stows away on the infamous hunter ship called the Inevitable with celebrity captain Crow and his adopted son Jacob. Captain Crow and Jacob have been spending their lives trying to slay the biggest and baddest sea beast all the Red Bluster.

It's eluded them for decades and basically the Red Bluster is Crow's white whale. Crow will stop at nothing to kill this thing and his morals are starting to get blurred at the methods in which he's trying to get at it.

When the Inevitable finally encounters the perfect opportunity to kill the Red Bluster a series of unfortunate incidents happen that separate Jacob and Maisie from the rest of the crew. They become a dynamic duo trying to figure out the truth behind the war between sea beasts and the humans.

I liked the family dynamics of this movie. Although there aren't any biological families each of these orphan parent child relationships work quite well. We have Crow and Jacob and then we have Jacob and Maisie. It's actually pretty subtle the way that they did this and I liked how they didn't play it out too heavy.

The way that they have a twist reveal later on concerning the war between sea beasts and humans is nice as well. It's quite predictable and you know where it's going to go. As a kids movie I like that they added this lesson in the mix. It goes to show the kids need to question what they're being taught. Are things actually as they seem or are there things in there that might not be as accurate as expected. It's good for people to do their own research so that we don't follow under the same mistakes as the past.

As an animated movie they did a really good job with this one. The CGI was done really well. At certain times the water looks a little too good for an animated movie. I wonder if they have to figure out the level of realism that they have to do to keep the animation in the movie look consistent. It's one of those situations where some of it looks really cartoony and some very realistic.

Overall, I had a great time. Each of the characters were likeable and had me interested in their outcomes. The animation had me mesmerized and it's a very bright and colorful movie even during night and stormy scenes. I will have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. It is something that the whole family can enjoy and I'm sure it'll also bring up some good family conversations into the mix.