El monstruo marino

If you or your children enjoy monsters and sea battles this is the movie for you. Someone referred to it as "how to train your dragon sea addition" and I would completely agree.

As an adult I was entertained throughout. Plenty of laughs and valuable lessons demonstrated within the plot points. Immediately after it finished it was requested that we watch it again.

There are a few moments of bloody fight scenes and some words that I would consider inappropriate for my 6 year old, but overall it was a good movie.

This is so cute! Amazing animation, great voice acting, good premise and just all around gorgeous! I loved this movie so much! I loved how sweet and adventurous Maisie was! Kudos to the voice actor they did an amazing job portraying Maisie's character! Red was perfectly cute and scary. The water scenes in the beginning with the sea monsters was actually quite frightening. Maybe it's just because I'm afraid of getting lost at sea or in space and being swallowed whole by a ginormous beast. I was watching the movie and I was like is that Karl Urban? And it is!!

Okay. This story has been seen before. A clear example is How to train your dragon. But what is questionable is not precisely that, but the reasons why this argument must be seen again and again. There are traditions around the world that are often ruthless with the animal world. Things that today have no logic or coherent explanation other than the mere fact of belonging to a certain culture. Whaling in Asia, bullfighting in Spain, rodeos in Chile and much more. Traditions cannot be sustained over time only by honoring our ancestors. If we are damaging what surrounds us, it must not continue. The message of this film is very clear.

Speaking of the technical aspects of the film, it is an animation that stands out for its realism and textures within an animated world. The new technologies, which are not so new anymore, allow a beautiful hyper-realism that fills each plane with subtleties. The characters could have had better kinetics and gesticulation, especially in moments where the emotions were more extreme, but considering the audience it was addressed to, it is something that is forgiven.

Entertaining, great message, good voice acting (it was weird hearing The Butcher stop a monster from being killed), and great aesthetics.

Totally recommended.

Firstly, the visuals. Everything is visually gorgeous and well designed, from Bridgetown (think Victorian Venice) to the ships to the ocean. A lot of care was taken in the actual animation (i.e. Movement) of all of these elements. The waves and spray of the ocean look like they're from a documentary, the swaying of the ship looks truly forceful and the destruction of the town is full of debris and dust. Not to mention a clever little scene involving a rope and a coconut tree. This gives the entire film an immersive feeling and really raises the stakes as we can truly appreciate how powerful the forces of nature are.

Secondly, the dialogue was great. A lot of the film is just bickering between the sailor and the young child, which showed off their personalities and never got annoying. Every character in this film has such a distinctive personality that it's like we know them in real life.

Thirdly, it's not a very original story. Like many others, I thought of How to Train Your Dragon halfway through watching, as the characters and overall storyline are similar. Does this film add much to improve on that inspiration? Beyond the change in setting, not really. One glaring flaw is the the dragons in How to Train Your Dragon have much more personality, while the beasts in this film are quite tepid.

Overall, a good film. I still rated it 7/10. But it could have been higher if it differentiated itself from previous films and had a more compelling ending.

This has the feel of a recent Disney Animated film, which is definitely a compliment. From a story that has some real weight to it, to a tiny, cute creature that never fails to provide genuine laughs, Chris Williams really has it all down from his time directing some of Disney's best animated films.

I was surprised by the route they took with the story, as I thought it would be a simple beast hunting plot. The Sea Beast has some real How to Train Your Dragon vibes and it honestly worked for me. It hits a lot of the expected story beats, but when your film is this delightful, you really don't mind. I hope Netflix continues to produce this kind of quality animated fare.