Review: In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

At the local cinema that I go to we have an Unlimited card, you pay one price and you can go tot he cinema a many times as you want in the month.  Another perk of this is Unlimited advanced screening and secret screenings.  I always book the secret screenings, mostly just to find out what it was but the day before the latest one there were lots of tweets about the Odeon secret screening and that is as Room.  So i'm super excited because I've wanted to see this since i saw the trailer, so imagine my surprise when I get to the theatre and the lady behind the counter gives me 3D glasses.  I'm starting to think may the secret viewing isn't Room and then while waiting for the film to start the trailer for Room comes on...now I'm really upset because I know for certain we are watching In the Heart of the Sea, which I did not want to see, Dad however was thrilled.

In the Heart of the Sea is the story of the crew of the whaling ship, the Nantucket.  The youngest crew member Tom Nickerson is now an old man and played by Brendan Gleeson telling Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) the story that inspired Moby Dick.  The Nantucket heads out with new Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) and experienced first mate Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth).

I think there is a good chance the studio had hoped that the idea of Chris Hemsworth with his top off and windswept hair would attract hoards of young ladies (oh, hello!), however most of those young ladies are now Star Wars fans (wait, did you just say Star Wars?!). Being released around the same time at Star Wars pretty much guaranteed a low Box Office figure and with a target audience of 50+ males (most of which enjoyed the original Star Wars theatrical release) ruined any chance of success for it.

Personally, i enjoyed the film a lot more than I expected to, the story was interesting, if not gross in a few places, and it held my attention all the way through.  Hemsworth wasn't bad to eyeball either!  I had a bit of an issue with the 'story teller' not actually being present in parts of the story that were told (how did he know?!) but that was minor.  The scenes on the water were brilliantly shot did at some points have me on the edge of my seat.  It needn't have been in 3D, there was really no benefit and actually the 'on land' scenes just seemed blurry to me and actually gave me a bit of a headache!

By far better than I anticipated but I don't know if I would watch it again.