If there's one thing Old Man Empire taught us, it's never to meddle with a sociopathic whale. And he was gnarly seafarer with kippers for hands and a pipe permanently clenched between the two remaining gnashers he hadn't had prised from his face by a kraken off the Cape of Good Hope. Sadly the crew of The Essex, a similarly salty bunch, never met the kipper-fingered seafarer or had the chance to heed his sage advice. This new trailer for Ron Howard's** In The Heart Of The Sea** lays bare the terrible consequences.
Adapted from Nathaniel Philbrick’s Moby Dick origin story of the same name, Howard’s sea movie relays the misadventures of a whaling expedition led by Captain George Pollard, Jr. (Benjamin Walker) and first mate Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) after it comes out second best in an encounter with an angry sperm whale mid-ocean.
Being adrift in small boats in the Pacific is something of a cinematic trend at the moment – Unbroken and Kon-Tiki also capture that “oh shit” moment when the wind drops and you’re suddenly 4000 miles from land with only a flying fish to gnaw on – but this one takes us to new and terrifying places. The South American landmass is still some distance when the food starts to run out...
Howard’s strong cast also boasts Michelle Fairley, Charlotte Riley, Jordi Molla, Tom Holland, Sam Keeley and Cillian Murphy among those who either set sail or must deal with the aftermath. In The Heart Of The Sea drops anchor on March 13.