I wasn’t excited to start The Sea Beast… it looked like another generic Netflix animation. But I was wrong. As soon as the flick starts, it prevents some absolutely stunning visuals. A kid struggling to get onto a piece of flotsam in the ocean, the camera moving above and below the water where we see a sailing ship, broken in two, sinking into the depths. It’s gorgeous animation that sets the tone for this very good, but not quite excellent, sea chanty adventure story.

The flick is about a fictional sea empire at war for centuries with massive sea monsters. The hunting ships have become legendary so a young orphan girl runs away to join the crew of the most epic of these ships.

The first half hour of this flick kept popping my eyes and stirring my love of adventure. There’s a sense of scale both above and below water and acts of courage and daring that are both cool and epic. This film feels completely different… and then the captain drops a line about “crossing the T”… and I’m no expert on nautical jargon during the age of sail, but I knew what that meant and I was surprised the movie did too.

But then the movie calms down and goes in a more traditional family film direction. I’ll admit I was a little disappointed that it was going in a bit of a How To Train Your Dragon direction (even though I love that movie). But, hey, the flick had to have a story and not just a great setup.

It has great human characters, especially the brassy, ballsy little girl with her cockney accent and attitude. Her relationship with the main hunted (voiced by Karl Urban in a way that disturbingly reminded me of Billy Butcher at times) is a lot of fun and very charming.

There’s a fine message and history to the story, but it feels like they’re missing an important scene and/or explanation to earn its finale. It feels like they took a short-cut to get to the message and plot points they were aiming for. It’s unfortunate but it’s also a testament to how good this flick is that I demanded more of it.

I’m still giving this flick a very good rating, but not as good as I was hoping for. It’s still a very good and surprising movie… this is what I want from family-friend content. Something that tries harder and does the unexpected… and doesn’t repeat the same beats and generic feel-good messages.

Score: 86