The rest of the 3D is great too and well worth the extra admission price. You can really see the difference when 3D cameras are use as opposed to when a studio has their movie converted to 3D during post-production in hopes to make an extra buck. Even a shot of someone standing around looks good and you can only imagine how the whale hunting scenes turn out. It’s as if you are along with the crew on the ocean.

An interesting question to ask is whether a movie like “In the Heart of the Sea” can work with a 21st Century audience. Whaling was a acceptable part of life in the 19th Century. It was how we obtained oil. Today, most people find the hunting of whales appalling. There are scenes where the crew are harpooning the parent while its pod swims besides it. Are we going to feel sorry for these men when one of those whales fights back?

Ron Howard does a good job with casting. At no point while watching Chris Hemsworth do you think, “Hey, that’s Thor.” The most noteworthy performance comes from Brendan Gleeson who plays old Thomas. That’s another aspect of the movie that’s pretty unique. Most of the time when this kind of movie is told, when someone is telling a story, we see them at the beginning, but don’t see them until the end. Here, the story frequently returns to Thomas and Melville as a personal story unfolds there.

The biggest aspect lacking in “The heart of the Sea” is a connection with the characters. Since many of us are likely to side with the whale, we are not as emotionally attached to these people as the story would want us to be. The special effects are good, but not as mind blowing as you would expect from a movie of this magnitude. It is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and peril, brief startling violence, and thematic material