Verdict: ★★★ 1/2

First of all, let me say that I have always loved Brendan Gleeson’s work and he just. keeps. getting. better. I love how much humor he can bring to a crotchety old man (see: Mad Eye Moody), or how much sarcasm he can bring to a peaceful small town sheriff (see: Sheriff Hank in Lake Placid). His dark, searching eyes and pursed lips speak volumes!

In The Heart Of The Sea is yet another he can add to his resume of memorable characters that moved me. This is a seafarer’s tale of intense adventure, coming of age among sailors on a working ship, and a big, pissed off whale showing man that he is decidedly NOT in charge. Tom Nickerson (at first, played by Gleeson and in flashbacks played by the new Spiderman‘s Tom Holland) is an old man with a grave secret that he’s not told anyone about for decades… even his wife. And when a persistent novice author named Herman Melville comes calling, asking him to tell his tale so that he can write a new book, Nickerson finds himself facing the dark corner he’s kept hidden all these years.

Flashback to when Nickerson was an adventurous young boy, new to whaling aboard the Essex, out of Nantucket in 1820. He finds himself under the leadership of Cap’n Pollard (Benjamin Walker) and first mate Chase (Chris Hemsworth) as they are the last whaling boat to leave harbor that fateful year, promising to return with 2000 barrels of whale oil.

At first, things look good. Whales seem abundant in the south Atlantic… when suddenly they all disappear and for a full year, the Essex rounds Cape Horn and tries for the Pacific instead. They do find whales nearly halfway across the ocean and come across a particularly disruptive white whale that makes the Essex look like a bucket.

Directed brilliantly, as usual, by one of my all-time favorites Ron Howard, ITHOTS is a finely crafted sea story, one that people who have ever loved Melville’s, or Hawthorne’s, or Stevenson’s books of adventures will really enjoy. Gleeson, as stated, brought his A-game to the production and Tom Holland surprised me with the depth of character he gave as a young, naïve boy who doesn’t want to go through Hell, but finds himself facing it and takes that step with one eye closed.

However, as much as I like Hemsworth, I found him a bit distracting and not in a way my wife does. He kept slipping back and forth as if upon an unswabbed deck between a thick clam-chowder Massachusetts accent, and Thor’s deep, European huntsman articulation. Right when the whale guano hits the fan in several scenes, Hemsworth says something emotional to a fellow crewman with his JFK voice, then suddenly stands up as a leader of men breaking out in his Thor delivery and I fully expected to see Mjölnir the hammer in his hand.

A small thing, yes. But in a movie of this epic nature, it pulled me back out of the story a few times and into real life again for just a moment. That’s the worst, when you’re one of the sailors right there in the action and something is happening… and suddenly you look around and remember you have a lawn to mow later. Crap! Oh wait, the movie. Right! But still, it’s a small thing and the ENTIRE rest of the movie more than covers the balance.