Le Monstre des mers

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.