Netflix’s The Sea Beast shows how far animation has come — and what it still needs

polygon.com:

In the early days of feature-length computer animation, there was an unofficial list of objects and textures that were notoriously difficult to master, with hair, water, and human faces chief among them. Netflix’s new animated feature The Sea Beast shows how far the medium has come over the last few decades — but it simultaneously shows how uninspired big-budget animation can still look, sometimes moments after it delivers a visual wow.

Specifically, this ocean-set adventure story deploys mega-gallons of computer-animated water with great skill. On the surface, as hunter ships prowl the sea for fearsome beasts that supposedly threaten humanity, the water shimmers and churns. Underneath, when sailors are occasionally dragged down to face enormous, kaiju-esque creatures, the murk creates a spare, ethereal beauty. The creatures themselves are a wonder of economical design: cartoony enough for readable expressions, imposing enough to put a good, momentary scare into smaller audience members.

So why is every human in this overpopulated story so dull to look at? The most distinctive by default is Maisie Brumble (Zaris-Angel Hator), a young orphan who reads of heroic beast-hunters and dreams of joining them on the high seas. She’s a Black girl, which ensures that she doesn’t look exactly like every other plucky young animated hero. But in general, the Sea Beast approach to human designs is to imitate recent Disney features like Moana or Encanto and make their eyes a bit smaller. Jacob Holland (Karl Urban), the strapping sailor who becomes Maisie’s reluctant guardian when she stows away on his monster-hunting ship, isn’t a caricature of swashbuckling masculinity or a clever visual variation on a familiar theme. He’s just a