Film Review: Netflix's The Sea Beast (2022)

Netflix's The Sea Beast (released June 15) is a wannabe Moby Dick meets How to Train Your Dragon mashup with more toxic wokeism than a battleship has barnacles. 

In the city of Three Bridges, the greatest heroes are the monster hunters. These brave sailors kill horrifying beasts that emerge from the depths of the ocean to plague civilization.

Their valor is not lost on Maisie, a young orphan. Maisie's parents were hunters killed at sea in the war against the beasts. To fulfill her dreams of becoming a hunter herself, she stows away with the legendary Captain Crow and Jacob, his dashingly heroic second in command.

Crow and Jacob are larger than life. Despite being the most successful hunter ever, Crow realizes he is getting too old for the work. Jacob, whom he regards a son, is handpicked for the captain's role once Crow retires. However, Crow will not quit until he completes one final task—exacting vengeance on the red sea beast that took his eye. This is no mean feat. The red beast is monstrous in proportions; bigger by far than the ships that hunt it.

The crew soon do battle with the red beast. Jacob and Maisie fall into the sea, where the monster swallows them whole. The crew lament their apparent deaths, especially Crow, who witnessed his adoptive son fall into the beast's jaws. Vowing to make good his revenge or die trying, Crow promises everything short of his soul to a witch in return for a poisoned harpoon with which to fight the monster.

The film's second half is centered on Jacob and Maisie, who are still alive in the airtight mouth and nostrils of the red beast. For some reason the film does not deem fit to explain, the red beast does not just kill and eat these two. Instead, it deposits them safely on an island populated by monsters of all shapes and sizes.

Maisie adopts a militant "Save the whales" attitude three centuries ahead of its time. For her, the real monsters are the humans who started the war with the sea beasts. She becomes convinced that this heretofore mindless, bloodthirsty killing machine is simply misunderstood. Somehow, she apprehends that this creature is not acting on instinct. Judging by its actions, the monster has sufficient use of reason to understand her (and only her, conveniently). Nor does the creature seem to purposefully will the eradication of humanity. Maisie calls the monster "Red" and insists it is a "she"  without so much as asking the monster its name or preferred gender pronouns.

​Maisie is so dead set in her thinking that she does all she can to prevent Jacob from doing the commonsensical thing—killing the murderous red monster before it eats them, or at least fending it off. After a short while, Jacob, who you'd think would know better given his history fighting these creatures, adopts Maisie's pro-monster views.

​Although the film offers no reason why the red beast should want to listen to any human, let alone help Maisie and Jacob who tried to kill it, that is precisely what the beast does. It never communicates except with grunts, and it does not appear to understand Jacob, yet somehow it does as Maisie instructs.

With Jacob navigating, Maisie sails the beast home over the course of several days. They are stopped en route by Captain Crow. Over their protests, Crow spears the beast with the drugged harpoon, sedating it. He then hauls the monster behind his ship all the way back to Three Bridges, where he intends to collect a bounty. 

​As they pull into port, Maisie is locked in a cabin, unable to escape. She peruses books on the shelf revealing that everything she learned growing up was a lie. The monsters did not emerge from the sea to attack mankind à la Godzilla style; rather, the king and queen of Three Bridges instigated the war against the beasts.

​This begs the question of motive. It is easy to grasp that the monsters might have been hunted out of fear that they might threaten people. It is just as easy to see that they might be killed for profit. Early in the film, Captain Crow mentions to the royal family that monster hunting made the kingdom wealthy. How, though, if all the kingdom does is pay bounties for dead monsters? That results in a net loss to the kingdom. With no other reason being offered, the film would have us believe the royal family instituted monster genocide on a whim. 

​Also, note the terminology: the film calls it a "war." On that line of thinking, a wholesale fishing company might be court-martialed for war crimes against fish.

Speaking of court-martialing, near the end of the film a general of Three Bridges's army disobeys the king's direct order to fire upon the beast as it wrecks the city. She (the general is a woman) literally disobeys him to his face. Her stated reason: her family was lost on the same ship that took Maisie's parents. 

​With the entire populace of Three Bridges in attendance, the child Maisie gives a brief speech that turns the army against the ruling family. The townsfolk, who had long viewed hunters as heroes, turn a full 180 so violently that it's a surprise a category five tornado did not whirl into being right then. 

​While it got off to a rousing start, the film's hamhanded woke moralizing chokes out any glimmer of enjoyment to be had. 

​The theme of "we humans were the monsters all along" is overdone in general, and this film does nothing new with it. The characters, particularly the background characters, exhibit the film's pressing need to demonstrate racial, gender, and body shape inclusivity. This overrepresentation cannot be by accident. The fact it is so apparent means it is the result of a conscious design choice. The world of The Sea Beast is no melting pot; it's a salad bowl, except that each ingredient is compartmentalized into its own "separate but equal" container such that it's a wonder it can be called a salad and not a grocery aisle: "tomatoes go in the tomato rack; lettuce goes on the lettuce shelf," and so forth. The film checks all the social inclusivity boxes: men who look like women, women who look like men, plus token specimens of every shade of skin color and/or race. How does the kingdom of Three Bridges even keep together without the cohesion of a shared culture? Devoid of common social ties, can they even call themselves a kingdom at all? It all reeks of globalism.

Then there is the rampant sexism. Jacob is the butt of all the jokes, playing the trope of a bumbling dad. The king is an effeminate ponce afraid of his loudmouth and overbearing queen. Sailors Ms. Merino and Sarah Sharpe are uberb*tch hardcases whose femininity is so understated that it might well be an afterthought. Had they been written as males, no one would notice. 

The film's writing is awful with respect to character development. In this regard, Maisie is the worst character of the lot because she can do no wrong. There are never any negative consequences for her choices. Everything she does turns out well for her, notwithstanding the moral import of her choices or their potentially catastrophic outcomes.

Maisie escapes from the orphanage that cares for her and stows away on Crow's ship. She cuts the red beast free the first time Crow captures it, in direct contravention of the captain's orders. She humiliates and undermines Jacob at every turn despite that Jacob only wants to get them both to safety. She elicits the insubordination of an army general against her king. She even attempts the stabbing murder of Crow, whom Jacob loves as a father, to save the beast she only just befriended.

​All this, and somehow she is the hero of the story? 

Add to this the Marxist undercurrent Maisie espouses. The film champions reinterpretation of history from a class struggle viewpoint. The filmmakers even said as much. "It's critical who's in control of the stories and who gets to say what the truth is in our history," director Chris Williams told the Los Angeles Times in a July 8 interview. 

​Toward the film's end, Maisie argues that the ruling class, in this case the king and queen, socially engineered the populace's hatred of the beasts and their love for the hunters. This redefining of cultural heroes calls to mind 2020's racially motivated violence in the United States, particularly the toppling of statues of its cultural icons. 

​Doubt the accepted narrative, the film asserts, because "even heroes can be wrong." Okay Maisie, I'll do that. You're the hero of this film, so it's only fitting we start by doubting you.

In this era of victimhood one-upmanship, I assert my Antifa-given right as a Black woman to be offended at this film. Maisie, the character, despite being a Black female, does not represent me, my values, or any values I would want imparted to my children. I long for the day when technology allows me to throw out these eyes that have watched this film and replace them with new ones, but until then, I'll avoid this movie like how sailors avoid $10 prostitutes.

​Also, the monster looks like a giant red penis.

Just saying. ​

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Felicia Falcón is an international correspondent for IMBS. She reports on global news without ever having to leave her couch, thanks to the wonders of Internet search engines and clever photo editing software.