PATRICK'S 10 WORST LIST

by Patrick Gibbs

2015 was a big year in cinema. It was the year when super heroes started to fade at the box office, as audiences clamored for something they had never seen before, like Jurassic World, Mission: Impossible 5, and the seventh Star Wars and Rocky movies. It was the year that Pixar proved it was not slipping into mediocrity by giving us one of their best films ever, only to immediately follow it with one that put the "ocre" into media in a way Disney usually reserves for daytime cable. It was the year The Hunger Games finally reached its epic conclusion, which was so epic in scale that it could only be described using one word: epic. It was the year that Leonardo DiCaprio finally, at long last, either did or didn't win an Oscar, and it was the year when Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson's daughter (I was frankly quite disappointed that she did not have bright orange clown hair and 5'0 clock shadow) became a star in 50 Shades of Grey But Only One Facial Expression.

But it was also, as is often the case, a year when many truly terrible movies disgraced the silver screen. Here are my choices for the Ten Worst Films of 2015.

1. MORTDECAI

Johnny Depp, who has been striving so hard to become the most reliable name in crap, screwed up big time by giving a terrific and exhilarating performance in Black Mass this fall, but fortunately, he can rest easy knowing that people have already forgotten his exceptional work there. But have they forgotten Mortdecai?

 Mortdecai is a juvenile and surprisingly dull affair that is trying hard to be Ian Fleming meets P.G. Wodehouse, with a dash of the biting irreverence of Blackadder. It succeeds in channeling all but three of those sources, and at best we are given flat one liners such as Depp examining a photo of an old lady with an arrow sticking out of her back and quipping "This woman is badly in need of a chiropractor," or a never ending series of jokes about how everyone hates the title character's mustache, which he happens to love (this bit is stolen directly from Jeeves and Wooster, and it goes without saying it was much more amusing in the original.); At worst, we get assaulted by a windup 6th Grade joke machine that appears to have been set for a repeating pattern of "fart, vomit, balls." The presence of an appealing cast and the promise of a throwback to better days of cinematic slapstick make it very hard not to want to give this thing a chance, but the movie manages to fail on every possible level.

2. OUTCAST
Hayden Christensen and Nicolas Cage star. . . wait, there's actually more . . . as disgraced British Knights of the Crusade, who have ended up in 12th Century China. Both actors seem to be trying to evoke Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai,  but Christensen plays more like Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, minus the charisma, and Cage decides to throw in traces of Jack Sparrow, Travis Bickle and every last character from Robert Altman's musical version of Popeye for good measure.

In fairness to the actors, it must be stated that one of the bigger strengths of the film is Christensen's ability to handle a sword (and the fact that he usually does not talk when he is doing so), and the top knot in Cage's hair after he tries to assimilate into life in China is probably as good an explanation as we're ever going to get as to why his face is pulled so uncomfortably tight nowadays. The former Academy Award winner doesn't so much chew the scenery as swallow it whole, laughing like a sweaty toothed madman as he growls out such memorable lines as "the Black Guahds ah heh as thick as flies on a fahting goats oss thanks to you!"

The basic set up is simple: the corrupt son of the King is enraged to learn that his little brother has been chosen to succeed their father instead of him, so, having seen Gladiator, he kills the king, framing his brother, who must flee for his life along with his older sister. Along the way they meet the once great warrior What's His Name (Christensen) passed out in an opium den, and they are impressed when he beats up a group of beer swilling truckers who break the jukebox and insult his favorite hockey team or something like that (almost none of that last statement is accurate, but in fairness to me, it's hard to care what's going on when you aren't paying attention.). The point is, he can fight, so they latch on to him, and the discarded and cynical former Knight soon realizes that even though he thought he didn't believe in anything anymore, it turns out that Asian girls are still hot.

Former stuntman Nick Powell directs the first 40 minutes as if he wants to be Edward Zwick, and then out of nowhere it appears as if he suddenly has to go to the bathroom and hands control over to a ridiculously enthusiastic, if not very skillful, Paul Greengrass fan, who has never learned the term "director's line." The shift in style could not be more abrupt, but after about 10 to 15 minures Powell takes the reigns again and we go back to the original style just in time for Cage and Christensen to settle their differences and fight for the glory of whatever it is they believe in, and one of them dies doing whatever it is he loved. I forget which one.

3. THE BOY NEXT DOOR

Jennifer Lopez stars in this laughable "thriller" from bad movie icon Rob Cohen. Lopez is Claire Peterson, a High School English teacher whose husband (John Corbett) cheated on her, and they are currently separated while she decides whether to forgive him, and their shy, awkward teenage son Kevin just wants things to go back to the way they were. Enter Noah (Ryan Guzman), the nice young man who has moved in with his grandmother next door after his parents died.  Noah befriends young Kevin and ends up hanging around the house a lot. The misplaced Kevin is thrilled to have a cool new friend in his life, and Claire finds herself charmed by the boy's polite manner, the way he looks out for her boy, his surprising interest in English lit and the way he likes to strip naked while standing next to the window. So naturally, when Dad and Kevin go on a camping trip, Noah just happens to show up, and Claire invites the boy in for dinner and perhaps a cup of adultery.

Claire regrets her impulsive indiscretion, especially when Noah turns out to be a new student in her class. Claire is, of course, horrified to discover that she gave a student several F's in one night, if you get my drift, but Noah is after more than just his teacher's celebrated A. He tells her he is in love with her, and that he is going to make her happy the way she deserves to be. But when he sees her out on a date with her husband, Noah registers his disapproval by tampering with the old man's brakes, nearly getting both father and son killed. As Noah becomes progressively more unstable, the film becomes more and more ludicrous until we learn that Noah killed his own father, and everything leads to an action packed showdown as Noah tries to burn the family alive and Claire stabs him in the eye with her son's epipen (another in your face adrenaline rush from the director of the original Fast and the Furious.).

This is about as forgettable a variation on Fatal Attraction as Hollywood has ever spewed out, and it is strictly for non discriminating J-Lo fans (as if there were any other kind.).

 4. KNOCK KNOCK

And speaking of taking an interest in the younger generation,  let's take a look at the latest from director Eli Roth. Keanu Reeves plays Evan Webber, a family man and architect who is in love with his wife, his kids and his life. But his wife is a workaholic artist, and as a result, Evan hasn't had his brush cleaned in a little while, if you get my drift. So when she and the kids go on a beach trip and Evan stays home due to a minor shoulder injury that comes and goes depending on whether it suits the purposes of a story that seems to be made up as we go along, he gets visited by some univited guests.

Genesis (Lorenza Izzo) and Bel (Ana de Armas), two free spirited and gorgeous young girls, show up on his doorstep during a tumultuous rainstorm, on their way to a party and hopelessly lost. The gentlemanly Evan invites them in out of the warmness of his heart, but the longer they stay, the more the pulsing warmth in his heart tends to take the express elevator down a few floors, if you get my drift. By the time their clothes are in the dryer and they sit around in robes talking about sex, Evan is getting really anxious for the Uber driver he called to pick up the girls to get there. But by the time he does, the two girls have surprised our well meaning protagonist in his shower, and well, you can fill in the blanks from there (Evan certainly does, if you get my drift.).

He wakes up the next morning, horrified at what he has done, and tries to hurry them out the door so he can put this mistake behind him. He ends up driving them some distance away, believing he is rid of his little problem. But surprise surprise, they show up again, hitting him over the head and tying him up, torturing him, frolicking and breaking things, trying on every single outfit in the house (psychopath Barbie just loves to accessorize!) and generally doing their best to let you know that Roth must be a great director because it looks like he has probably seen A Clockwork Orange like, a bunch of times. The crazed and clearly dangerous girls reveal themselves to be under age, and they are out to punish and destroy our "hero," whom they have been spying on for some time. As we lead up to his planned execution at dawn,  the 108 pound gal pals effortlessly dig a six foot grave for Evan in the back yard (Genisis smokes a gigarette and wears a backwards baseball cap to make this grueling bit of manual labor play believably.).

From here, things get progressively stupider, the token black friend stops by long enough to die stupidly, and Evan has a stirring monolgue defending his right to live and his actions. "It was free pizza!" He screams. "Delivered to my house! What was I supposed to do?!" adding a few well chosen profanties (mostly the same one over and over again) for good measure. Despite this smooth, Clarence Darrow like defense, the girls are not swayed. But wait
. . . as Genesis raises a rock to slam it over Evan's head, slamm in it down, we are treated to a lingering close up of her butt because her butt, taking up the entire frame as she is bent over, preventing us from knowing Evan's fate (and we can practically hear Michael Bay weeping at Roth's ingenious and moving use of staging.)

As she stands, we see Evan's head, still alive, the rock lying next to it,  and the girls laugh as they reveal that this has all been "just a game," they are in fact in their early 20's, and they travel around doing this to married men until one of them finally has the self control to say no. They leave Evan, buried up to his neck in his own grave, to think about what what he did wrong.

The movie is loaded with so many plot holes that it's a wonder it doesn't cave in on itself. How did the girls spy on Evan so thoroughly that they know about things he said to his wife in the privacy of his own bedroom? Did they plant a bug? How? And how did they coordinate the rainstorm that is crucial to their plan to just happen to hit on the night that the wife and kids are gone? Are the neighbors all blind and deaf, or do they just REALLY respect each other's privacy? None of this makes the slightest bit of sense, and the tongue in cheek, almost cutesy ending for a movie that has touched on subjects like statutory rape, murder and torture is completely inappropriate. It also spends most of its runtime trying to let Evan off the hook based on the idea that these two girls are insane, only to turn the tables and make him the bad guy and try to abruptly shift gears into a girl power story wherin these two crusaders are just punishing men for their inherent weakness and no actual harm has been done, apart from the destruction of an entire house, the lives of an entire family ruined forever, and let's not forget the dead token black friend (unless part of the routine is to have the victim's token black friend show up at some point to pick up the wife's modern art sculpture and fall and hit his head so they have to wrap the body in plastic and throw him in the back of a van, just to make their homicidal maniac charade more convincing. Yeah! That's it! Now it all perfect makes sense.). This movie will only be remembered by bad cinema buffs and those who firmly believe that anything dark and pervy must be art.

5. LITTLE BOY 

Our next entry is on the opposite end of the spectrum, and is brought to you by Touched By an Angel's Roma Downey, Jr. and her producing partner, who previously brought you That Jesus Movie You Never Bothered To See. If you've ever wondered why nobody ever made a heartwarming, feel good, faith promoting family movie set against the backdrop of the horror of the atomic bomb being unleashed on the world, well then, Little Boy is here to answer that question.

The setting is small town America, circa World War II, and a plucky young boy named Pepper Flint Busbee escapes the daily nightmare of being saddled with such a stupid name by having imaginary adventures with his father (Michael Rappaport, whom you may remember as "that one guy in that one movie we saw"), and the two form an inseparable bond. Inseparable, that is, until the Japanese invade Pearl Harbor, and Daddy has to go to war because his oldest son, London, suffers from flat feet and an even stupider name than his little brother.

Meanwhile, Pepper can't seem to grow, and he even asks the doctor "Am I a midget?" The Doctor, who, for reasons we cannot begin to explain, is played by Kevin James, says dramatically "No. You're just (Spielberg push in) A LITTLE BOY." And from there, that's what everyone calls our hero.

Little Boy and his Dad are Big fans of a magician named Ben Vareen or something, and when Ben visits Little' Boy's town, he brings the kid up on stage to perform a magic act by making a soda bottle movie across a table by reaching out his wih hands, closing his eyes and grunting. Of course this is a cheap trick (illusion! It's a cheap illusion!) but the kid now thinks he has powers, and wants to use these powers to bring Daddy back from the war.

After Little Boy and London are caught helping Buffalo Bill attack the home of the neighborhood "Jap," the local Priest (Tom Wilkinson) tells the diminutive dufus that if he wants to bring Daddy home, he needs to complete the following list.

1. FEED THE HUNGRY
2. SHELTER THE HOMELESS 
3.VISIT THOSE IN PRISON
4. BURY THE DEAD
5. MAKE UP IT TO GAY KENNY FOR THE TIME YOU STOLE HIS CAR AND DROVE IT TO VEGAS AND LEFT IT THERE.
6. OBEY THE SCOUT LAW
7. NEVER FEED THEM AFTER MIDNIGHT

So Little Boy starts doing this. As he slowly

forms a friendship with Mr. Hashimoto, the aforementioned Japanese immigrant, the movie starts to develop its lone interesting element as it gets into the issue of blind bigotry and the dehumunization of an enemy during war time. This relationship could have easily been the central plot of the film, and under more capable hands it could have really worked. Unfortunately, the filmmakers are trying to tackle way too much, and for being so intent on making it a faith affirming film, they seem to have no clear idea how to do so. We have the doubters: London, who tells his little brother that he can't bring his Dad back with a magic list; the neighborhood bully who steals the list until Little Boy viciously attacks him to get it back (not that the bully doesn't provoke it, but still, what exactly are we trying to say here? Ultimately there are no consequences simply because it's Kevin James' boy, and the big guy is desperate to boink Little Boy's Mom and comes on to her at every opportunity.). The closest we get to really examining the issue of faith is Hashimoto chiding the Priest for toying with the boy as the two men play chess, which basically consists of "Why are you giving this boy false hope? "Shut up. That's why!" And then of course there are the major miracles: over and over again throughout the film, Little Boy extends his arms and grunts and growls as if he is experiencing severe intestinal discomfort, because this is supposed to bring Daddy back (young Jakob Salvati may be the most irritating child actor to grace the screen in decades, and as such, I quite frankly found it impossible to give a farting goat's ass whether he ever got his wish or not.). Eventually, our hero is challenged to move a mountain to prove his powers. It happens that at this exact moment, an earthquake hits the area, so technically the mountain does move. For his next trick, Little Boy faces toward Japan and does his thing, and there is a flash of light in the sky. News quickly spreads of the atomic bomb blast, and how the bomb was nicknamed "Little Boy," and our hero becomes beloved in the town, is rechristened "Atrocity Kid," and a very young Charles Xavier come to town to ask him to go to a special school.

But then we get word that Daddy was shot dead in a concentration camp, which can only mean one thing: Kevin James has an opening to hit on Mom again. Also, Little Boy starts to question his faith, and the sheepish Priest wanders around mumbling excuses about "God's will" and reminding people that this was only Michael Rappaport, after all. But all turns well when we discover that Daddy was reported dead falsely: it seems that when Daddy was wounded, a buddy decided to take his boots, but makes it exactly three steps before being shot dead in the most unfortunate, unintentionally hilarious bit of staging in a long time. The medic uses  the shoes to identify the body (because checking the dog tags would make no sense), so Daddy is still alive, and as we do a dramatic push in on a shepherd's staff leaning against the door of Little Boy's house, we are left to wonder if John Payne was really that good a lawyer or if Edmund Gwen really was God.

6. PAN

If it was possible to eat Hook, Oliver Twist, Time Bandits, Annie, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and Moulin Rouge!,  I have no doubt that Joe Wright's spectacular failure Pan is a very close approximation of what one would throw up.

The latest acid trip from the director of Anna Karenina does manage to provide a few moments of bizarre fun when the film is focusing on action, and the cinematography is breathtaking and the musical score rousing, but the story couldn't possiblly be more muddled and wildly varying in tone. Writer Jason Fuchs takes the story in some truly bewildering directions, and director Wright is more than up to the challenge of making those baffling choices even worse. Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman)? Gothic Steam Punk Drag Queen. Captain Hook? American Cowboy with a heart of gold (played by Garrett Hedlund as if William Shatner were doing a bad impression of John Wayne.). Peter Pan? The love child of a Fairy Prince and Mary Ormond (Amanda Seyfried), Blackbeard's last wife. As is often the case in fiction, somebody decides that any child destined for greatness should grow up in abusive surroundings, so young Peter is spirited away to London by his mother, Cosette, in order to keep him safe from her evil husband Jean Valjean (yes, I went there) so that he could be raised by corrupt nuns during WWII. In this story, Peter is a boy forced to grow up far too fast, and just maybe that's why he becomes so obsessed with clinging to childhood. A vaguely interesting premise, but not every story needs to have a dark, brooding version, especially when it is so far removed from reality.

Peter returns to Neverland, of course,  where he just might be the Messiah spoken of in prophecy. But even with all of these missteps, Wright really outdoes himself by getting in the final and most asinine word in the question of whether the "Indians" from J.M. Barrie's original storybshould be treated with modern, culturally sensitive sensibilities. Wright chooses not to use the "I" word at all, calling them "Natives" instead. The indigenous tribe is made up of a diverse group ranging from Chinese warriors, African Zulus and Australian Aborigines, and they are lead by a pasty white woman (Rooney Mara.). Now, if you're asking yourself "isn't that actually LESS politically correct than just making them American Indians? And while a diverse, interacial group can be called many things, how exactly the hell can they all be "Natives" of one place?," if you are doing so out loud, you might be schizophrenic, which is the best word I can think of to describe this movie.

7.  CHAPPIE

Remember Short Circuit? Well, what if it was violent and R-Rated? What if Steve Guttenberg and his wacky Indian sidekick had a son who went on to follow in their footsteps? And what if the robot he created was stolen by gang bangers whom he grew to think of as parents, though his relationship with his abusive new "Daddy" was a bit strained? What if Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin was a bullying religious fanatic? And what if I stayed home from more press screenings and just went to bed early?

8. FANTASTIC FOUR
There's not a lot left to say about this disasterous attempted reboot, or the damage it has done to the rising career of its director, Josh Trank, who really put the "twit" in "twitter" the night before the film opened in the U.S.  The nicest thing that can be said is that this movie is as a big a waste of a truly talented and appealing young ensemble cast as has hit the big screen in years.

9. SERENA

It says everything about what a dull, plodding journey this movie is that even with the re-teaming of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence it couldn't manage a wide theatrical release. Part of the problem is that it was made in the wrong decade: this kind of tepid, period melodrama might have at least been a high profile Oscar disappointment in the '90's.

Cooper plays George Pemberton, a wealthy timber company tycoon in 1930's North Carolina who likes to hunt panthers and mumble in an accent that sounds sonething like what John F. Kennedy might have sounded if he'd played Doc Holliday in Tombstone. When Pemberton meets a beautiful young blonde named Serena, he is so taken with her that he dumps his pregnant mistress and marries his new love post haste. But Serena harbors a secret . . . I just can't remember for the life of me what it is, but I'm sure it's really surprising and interesting and makes the 110 minute run time just whizz by like it was only three hours. Picturesque cinematography and talented stars (who can and have done much better) aside, the time wasted watching this movie will leave you with a haunting sense of regret for the rest of your natural life, or at least until the following day when you completely forget you even watched it.

10. HOT PURSUIT

Are you ready for some comedy? This premise of this gem is one in a million. I'm breaking up just thinking about it. Reese Witherspoon is a police offer, and Sofia Vergara is a mobster's wife, and (chortle chortle guffaw) one of them is white and short with small breasts while the other is (wipe away tears of laughter) a leggy Latina with big breasts! You see what they did there? It's pure genius!

As we enter a new year that includes what is likely to be an immensely entertaining Presidential Election to read about years later in the history books but will leave most of us wetting the bed in abject terror for the next ten months, the distraction of a darkened theater will be a welcome presence. Here's hoping for some good films in the months to come.

MACBETH

MACBETH
Starring Michael Fassbender, Marion Cottillard,
David Thewliss, Sean Harris
Based on the play by William Shakespeare
Screenplay by Jacob Koskoff, Michael Leslie &
Todd Louiso
Directed by Justin Kurzel
Rated R (violence) 
Reviewed by Paul and Patrick Gibbs


Shakespeare's Macbeth has never gotten the sort of widely accepted cinematic interpretation afforded to Henry V, Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, despite filmmakers as varied as Orson Welles and Roman Polanski taking on the supposedly cursed material. Justin Kurzel's new version should not be viewed by any means as definitive, but it is a well-realized and sometimes brilliant interpretation, highlighted by a mesmerizing performance by Michael Fassbender in the title role. We offer fair-warning that as Shakespeare enthusiasts who once directed a production of Macbeth, we find an analysis of the film requires specific discussion of elements of the material, which will likely be viewed by some readers as spoilers. Keep this in mind.

Kurzel's film begins with a newly invented, dialogue-free scene, featuring Lord and Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard) burying a child, what appears to be their daughter. This death appears to understandably weigh heavily upon them, and the specter of those passed on hangs heavily over the film. As Macbeth leads the battle against the traitorous Macdonwald (in a sequence which manages to be even more heavily stylized than the battles in Zack Snyder's 300), he sees the child standing off to the side of battlefield, accompanied by three strange women. The women are of course the Wyrd Sisters, three witches who prophesy that Macbeth will one day be King of Scotland, and therefore inspire his bloody rise to power. Unlike in some versions, the Witches feel more like ethereal presences than actual characters, almost fragments of thought in Macbeth's tortured mind.

The new film makes some major cuts, which is to be expected. The character most effected by this is Lady Macbeth, whose descent into madness happens less gradually than in the original text, though a strong performance from Oscar-winner Cotillard ensures that she remains a huge presence in the film. She and Fassbender play excellently off of each other, with Fassbender starting out more subdued and Cotillard more theatrical, then shifting roles as their thoughts about their actions alter their personalities.  And they are ably supported by the likes of Sean Harris, who makes a wounded and compelling Macduff, who manages to portray the boiling, righteous anger inside him without ever going over the top.  But as good as the rest of the cast is, this is Fassbender's film, and he proves once again that he's becoming one of the best actors around. Between this and his excellent turn as Steve Jobs he's easily our choice for best actor of 2015.

Kurzel's direction is stylish and inventive. His vision of Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane is a departure from the traditional portrayal, but it's gorgeously and hauntingly cinematic, providing a perfect example of how a filmmaker with vision can bend Shakespeare to the strengths of the medium without altering the text. And his interpretation of the death of Duncan is chilling and brilliantly dramatic. Most shocking of all is the depiction of the fate of Macduff's family, a deeply disturbing scene which accentuates Macbeth the overtly tyrannical dictator.

While this Macbeth is by no means definitive and is likely to appeal most to those already familiar with the text, the strong direction and superb acting make it by far the best big screen Shakespeare to come along in years. While perhaps not as consistently brilliant as Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, it's at least good as his Hamlet and far superior to the weak interpretations of the Bard's works we've been getting lately, which have been full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. This is a bold and bloody telling of the classic tale highlighted by an excellent lead performance.

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Tom Holland, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw
Based on the book by Nathaniel Philbrick's
Screenplay by Charles Leavitt 
Story by Charles Leavitt and Rick Jaffe & Amanda Silver
Directed by Ron Howard
Rated PG-13 (violence, profanity, adult themes and disturbing moments)
Reviewed by Paul and Patrick Gibbs



A common refrain from detractors of director Ron Howard is that he has no distinctive style of his own, and it's impossible to define inherently what is "a Ron Howard film". While it's true that he varies unpredictably from one genre to another and does not provide his films with a singular worldview as many aueteurs might do, we offer that there is a definite answer to what a Howard film is: it's Opie Taylor saying "Pa, I wanna be an astronaut" or "I wanna be a firefighter"or boxer or race car driver or whatever, and then living that experience and taking us with him. Where other filmmakers might choose simply to tell a story set in the world of a particular pursuit, Howard wants the visceral experience of what it's like to live that pursuit,  and more than any other director working today he wants to put us inside that experience. With his his new film, In the Heart of the Sea, he gives us that experience with the sea-faring life of the 19th century, and does so with every bit of his considerable visual and technical skill.

Based on Nathaniel Philbrick's bestseller of the same name, In the Heart of the Sea tells the story of the Essex, a whaling ship said to be the inspiration for Moby Dick. In fact, the film's framing device involves a young Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) meeting with a survivor of the Essex and hearing his story. The survivor is Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), who had just begun his sailing career as a fresh-faced 14 year old (played at this age by Tom Holland, Marvel's new Spider-Man), and the the bulk of the film is clearly from the point of view of its chief protagonist, First Mate Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth). This is a problem with the narrator framing device which frequently frustrates and confuses us: your storyteller can't provide the point of view and first hand account of events for which he was not present. It simply doesn't make sense. Anyway, The Essex sails out in search of whale oil, but runs into an encounter with an enormous white whale which puts the crew in a desperate and harrowing struggle to survive.

From a visual and technical standpoint, this ranks with Howard's best work, which is high praise. His eye for shot selection and skill with guiding the camera's movement ranks among the best in Hollywood today, and here he creates several eye-popping sequences, helped along by cinematographer Anthony Dodd Mantle and by his longtime editors, the great Mike Hill and Dan Hanley (who deserve serious Oscar consideration for this one). Howard also admirably creates the feeling of being stuck on board a cramped vessel, and actually plays the ship as small as it should be instead of letting it seem huge for the sake of convenience.  Howard has made us part of the sailing and whaling experience here as expertly as he's brought us into spaceflight and firefighting.

The weakness of In the Heart of the Sea is that the characters aren't nearly as engaging as the ones in Apollo 13. Hemsworth is certainly capable of carrying a film, but Chase's character arc is largely consumed by a mutual frustration and rivalry between himself and new Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker). While the evolution of the relationship between them eventually becomes quite compelling, it's a slow burn which leaves us no one with whom to bond and identify for the first half of the film, and this keeps us from getting as emotionally engaged as we want to be. Additonally, for all it's harrowing (and sometimes disturbing) human drama of survival,  the film never reaches the point where it feels it has anything of great importance to say, or any truly deep insight, despite an all around solid cast of performers.


However, In the Heart of the Sea is above all else an epic seagoing adventure, and there's no question
Howard has succeeded at providing that with with skill and vision.  It's a superb piece of directorial virtuosity, and if it fails to be as emotionally satisfying as it wants to be, it's still spectacular filmmaking.