We Argued About Whalefall for 22 Minutes

I at one point was thinking, is he going to get pooped out? And I was just wondering how far they would end up taking the whale's guts. Yeah. It was like, I

was wondering that too.

Is he going to get pooped out? Is he going to be thrown up? And then, good golly, this went full damn action hero at the end.

And whale fall is... do I need to not spoil things?

Initially. Initially let's keep it minimal. Okay. No Turn it off now if you don't want the movie spoiled. We're going to talk about what we liked and disliked about the film, getting down to the specifics. I can kind of kick us off. Down to the nitty gritty. Down to the nitty gritty. So, going into this film, I did not expect to like it. I kind of knew from the trailer that it probably wasn't going to be a film really for me. And so, I do like a lot of elements of horror, but this one, being more of like a claustrophobic... The premise of the film, I guess I'll go out and say, is... A person's dad commits suicide into the ocean. The son, never had a good relationship with his dad, decides to go out swimming during a storm to go find his dad's body. And gets swallowed by a whale. So, right on the premise, I think the premise is a little dumb. And I found elements of the characters interpersonally hard to believe. I think larger because of the dialogue. I mean, not because they got swallowed by a whale? Well, the interpersonal relationship. Oh, okay. Interpersonal, okay. Yeah, I think the whole premise is a little cheesy and silly. And the motivations are hard to believe. So, that's kind of where I'll kick off. Going into the film, I had very low expectations. And they kind of landed about where I expected. Which is, the premise doesn't really sound very plausible when you just think from each character's perspective. And I found that the characters... In the actual plot... Were... It was hard to believe that they were motivated to do the things that they did. Anyone else want to comment on that? Like, what do you mean? Like,

spoilers at the beginning. No spoilers at the beginning. We'll spoil it later. We'll spoil it later. So I'm gonna say... redo. Woop woop woop. So my initial tomato score is going for the audience is gonna end up being somewhere... I'm still gonna do mid 50s because the audience I think is going to react negatively to parts of the movie. And I don't think these types of movies, which I think there is sort of a horror element to it, unless it's like campy or there's like something to it. I just don't think the audiences are gonna connect with... the message that this movie is trying to be.

So your final score is a 55 %?

55. Yeah. For audience.

Um... I think that audience... oh man. I think that audience is also gonna dislike it. Do I think they'll dislike it more than you think they'll dislike it? I think... I think less. I'm gonna go... 62 for audience. Do I give context? I guess... I'll just stick to 62 and we'll talk about it later. Why? Well he... I'm trying to give context without spoiling it. Alright. I'll give it a 62. I'm giving it a 62 in part because of what Shane mentioned. I think the... the elements of horror I think a lot of people will not enjoy. And... on top of that, I think... I think that... the script will also be a pretty big ding against the film. From an audience perspective.

I'm actually gonna go higher than both of you. Because I feel like the acting was... despite some of the dialogue issues... Um... if you watch the film, you'll understand what I mean by that. Um... but... Despite that, I think the acting was great. I think the... the CGI was phenomenal. Did a great job. It seemed like there was a lot of... real sets... with... made possibly animatronics. And I respected the work... that it took to get some of these shots. Um... Now, in terms of the story itself... Um... I do know that it's based on a book. Um... but... So I think it will attract... the people who have read the book. Um... now that can be divided by... Hey... you know... It was so different from the book that people hate it. Versus... It did stay true. That I don't know. Because I didn't read the book. Um... I didn't read the book. Also. Yeah. Uh... That being said... I think the acting was well done. Um... The set pieces were great. Um... The... CGI... was actually pretty believable. Um... Uh... And based on that... I think it was still an enjoyable film. Um... For the vast majority of people who would watch it. It's something that... You know... They would talk about. Um... And... Probably enjoy talking about with their friends when they go see it. Um... And so based on that... I think I would give it... Uh... You know... A six... I think the audience score is going to be like a 68%. Um... Possibly it'll be low 70s. Um... Gotta pick a number. Gotta pick a number. Pick a number. 68? Is that your number? You know what? I'm going to go as close as 70s. I can go and do 69%.

Okay. Hey... Alright. Let's go... Reverse now. So Dave you have to start off with the... Critic. Critic.

I think the critics are going to have a hard time with this film. Um... Uh... I feel like a lot of the story was problematic. I feel like... Um... It's just a guy who probably should have just went to therapy. Um... And uh... No spoilers. I'm going to bleep

that out.

Um... That's not a spoiler. That's not a spoiler. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they would... The critics are going to have a hard time with the plot. Um... I think the critics will probably applaud Austin's acting. I think he did. With the material he was given. A phenomenal job of playing the part. Um... So that being said, I believe the critic score is going to be... Like a... Unfortunately, it's probably going to be Ron at 59%.

Okay. Ooh. Alright. I think the critics are really not going to like this film. Um... I agree with Dave on the acting. I think the set is a very interesting part of this film. But... I think... I think that critics are going to... Really ding elements of the plot, elements of the script. I think I'm going to dip into the 40s. I think I'm going to say 44. For what critics are going to call this one.

Dang. That's harsh. I thought 55 was bad. Heh heh heh. Uh... I'm going to go... I'm going to go divisive with the critics. I think there's going to be people or critics who have read the book. And so they're going to give it... Uh... This is entirely a guess. Because I haven't read the book. So I think they're going to read the book and they're going to be like, Yeah, that was pretty good. It caught like the major plot points. And then they're going to talk about like how different the movie is than the book. Um... And then there's going to be people who say, Oh, that's great. I'm going to give it like a solid 75, 80. And then there's people who are going to absolutely pan it. And just be like, Yo, man, this is the worst. It's like 40. Just like Alex. And then so what we're going to do is... Woop. Divide the two. And there's going to be like a 70 and a 40. And we're going to hit somewhere around... Did you say 65? I said 59%. I'm going to say 65. So I'm going to be the highest out of us three. And then probably the lowest on the list. And then the audience thing. Because I think people are going to go for a different reason than the critics are going to go.

Yeah. That was my thinking too. But I think audience will like it more than critics.

Okay. Yeah.

Now what do you

personally give it?

What do I personally give it? Oh, geez. I absolutely hate... Can we spoil? We can't talk about spoilers. No, not yet. Just like what was in the contents of the movie. I would never want to do that in real life. So you hated the subject matter. I hated the subject matter. And so if I was an audience score and I was giving my recommendation to people who are like me, who just want a good time and want to enjoy this, you're not going to have a good time. Out of 10? Out of 10, I'm going to give it... Oh. That's a whale sound. And so that whale sounds like a whale. Yeah. 3 .5.

You're such a dork. Earlier we were talking about how I grew up being told that a dork meant a whales member. But apparently in line we were looking that up and that was not true. And then you shared your favorite line from Anchorman which was... Which

was basic. I don't remember the exact part. But I think it was Ron Burgundy saying something along those lines. And I was like, ah, San Diego. It's like an old... The Germans said that means it's whale's vagina. And so we have a whale's member, a whale's vagina. And then speaking of whale's private parts, what's his guts?

Yeah, let's see. I am with Shane. I like horror films. I didn't like this film very much. I would give this... I'd give this a... It's hard not to say 30s also. I would say 3 out of 10. What's our rookie score? 3 .1 or 2 .9?

3 .1. 3 .1 and what does that sound like in a whale sound?

It's having a bad day.

That whale's shit itself or something.

Okay.

Okay. What's your score?

Full disclosure, because the main purpose of this whole podcast is that we don't have to do what we did today. And we did miss the first 15 minutes of And as someone who really enjoys films with excellent dialogue, it completely missed the mark for me in terms of why I watch film and why I love film. But, like I said earlier, the set pieces were phenomenal. The CGI was phenomenal. Just as a visual spectacle, it was an enjoyable film. And so I will not be as harsh as my compatriots here. And I will give it a 5 .5. Purely based on the feature. The feature. The way it took to film this movie. So, would I watch it again? I would probably watch the first 15 minutes while I'm making dinner or something. But I would not watch the film again. But that being said, I had a 5 .5. If you enjoy, you know, survival stories, if you enjoy films with great CGI, especially if you're a big fan of the CGI, especially the theater we were in, the sound was great. Sound design, A+. Yeah, the sound design was great. If those are things you enjoy and you've read the book and you're maybe a fan of Austin and Josh Brolin, the director, I would still recommend watching the film. But maybe not go and spend $18 to go watch it. Is it you couldn't believe that he wanted to go find his father's remains?

Yeah, I... Very hard to believe that a kid would... Knowing as much as he did about the ocean, decide, oh, there's a storm going on. There's a no -swim rule. There's police policing the ocean to make sure no one goes swimming. And he decides to go looking for a corpse in the ocean. But we don't... The ocean. Looking for a father that he never particularly liked. So... It's... It's hard to believe that someone would go out into the ocean. This is why we need to read the book. There's something missing. Yeah. I bet that there are elements of the plot that translate in the book that aren't translated in the film. But I mean,

the father figure, you can tell, like, he was meaning well. Right? And Austin's character was kind of a brat. Right? He just wanted to connect with... In all the flashback scenes, I feel like his dad was doing a better job at being a dad than he was doing as a son. Oh, interesting. I thought the opposite. like... I think... He tried. So a lot of dads don't even try. Right? And I think... In all the flashback scenes, sure, they were serving plot points. Every flashback was like, oh, this is when you taught me how to do this. This is when you taught me how to start a fire. Right? And the elements of a fire. And... But in all of those scenes, you can... For me, I think maybe because I have a Korean boyfriend... I have a Korean father. I could see his intent. Right? His intent was that he wanted to equip his son with the tools he thought, as flawed as it was, with tools to equip him for life and for good life. Right? Now, sure. Maybe he should have taught him... Delivery was off.

Delivery was off. It was extremely good. It's like using essentially what we're using right now, which is a GoPro, but they were like shoving it in his face and it made you just feel very claustrophobic. Everything was slimy. It's slimy because you're inside the whale's just guts. Right?

It seems like that would have been really hard to make believable and they made it believable. You felt like you were just in the innards of an animal the whole time. So... Extremely uncomfortable. Yeah. I'm really

curious to see how they did the stomach movements because throughout the film, the entire whale's innards were moving. Right? Yeah. It's like a living breathing insides of an

animal. Yeah. Just imagine Austin when he's shooting it, just having to sit in liquid goo for hours doing his lines.

And they went through the whole digestive system. Yeah. Chucky's redheads. I kept getting flashbacks.

This was the R -rated version of that. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Set design was really good. You brought up the actor... The lead... The lead's acting too. Which, do you want to comment on that? Like what you thought of his acting?

Yeah. I mean, he was given very limited lines, period. Because he's got a mouthpiece.

What do you call that? A breathable? It wasn't the octopus. The octopus is the other thing. But he's got the breathing thing on a scuba tank in his mouth. The, like, for 75 %

of the film. Yeah. Imagine trying to act with that. Now, that was frustrating for me because I couldn't understand. I mean, I was like, I don't know.

there isn't bile. Yeah. I think there's okay. We do not know whales anatomy very well. Let's start that first off. I think there's like a mouth with like teeth, a tongue and all that. And then there's a first stomach. Are we going to call it that? It's like a, a grinding stomach purgatory. Yeah. There's probably, there's probably like, well, yeah, yeah, there's probably like something related to that. Right. And so it's like, there's bones or something in muscles that just contract in this. So, yeah. So

it's like, it is the esophagus, right? Cause like for us, the

esophagus, it like traveled down to this stomach. No, but it's part of the,

I think he's part of the esophagus right at the entrance of the small intestine, or I don't know how many times, uh, how, you know, how many small intestine, intestines, stomach, because that's where, and you know, mammals have all the bile that breaks down the food that we eat. Stomach acid. Stomach acid. Um, sorry. I don't know if that's the same thing. the fact that he still was able to hear cause. Oh yeah. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. Like, cause when you're, cause there's a scene, the scene in the film where the sperm whale is doing a deep dive into the depths of the ocean. 99 % of us would explode with the pressure. Our bodies would disintegrate. Um, but they do have some believable parts where his eardrums, his eardrums burst. Um, his eyes would have, should have, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But his eardrums burst.

Um,

but then he comes out being able to hear, which I felt is a plot

hole. Oh yeah. Because they ask him what his name is. Yeah. Yeah. And he was perfectly fine. Yeah. I'm like, no, he's asking if he's ready to

go home.

Yeah. Okay. That's why maybe, maybe he was dreaming parts of it. Yeah. Oh, I see what you're saying. Cause then he has like, he, he, this is why I think there's okay. There's like a sweet killer, like 3d we'll call it spirit whale scene where it's like black and white. And it's like, we see the echo location. He's like connecting with his dad. That was a

very cool scene.

Yeah. I was like, it was, it was a cool like Orca whale fight scene, which was pretty cool. That was pretty cool. And I think at that point he must've been high, high as a kite because he's like talking with his dead dad, who's a spirit whale. And then there are going through flashbacks and going through like last minute pre -death character development. Right. Yeah. And so they, it was closure. Closure. Yeah.

And so the spirit whale, his dad has the spirit whale was the film's attempt for him to find closure with his father.

Man. Just imagine that as like therapy, like, okay, we're going to get you swallowed by a whale. So you can talk with your dead dad. Good luck. You could have just, probably not the weirdest thing people have ever tried. Just gone to a therapist, but no, we gotta get swallowed. We got a Pinocchio wit. Yeah. we think, uh, who this movie should see or, or who, who we'd recommend this movie to?

I, before we get there, I do want to say I did enjoy the jellyfish squishy. I thought it's a trope.

Best character in the

film. Best character in the film. It's such a, it's such a trope for survival films where they

impersonify

like some something and make a friend out of it. And, uh, him and his little glowing jellyfish. That was pro, you know, I'll probably put that in the review that we give officially. Um,

that, that

was my favorite scene. It was with a sock and the jellyfish.

Yeah. Best character in the film, I think. All right. So who do we think would enjoy this movie? Who should go see this film?

Who should go see this film? I think people who enjoy the sea, who enjoy, um, you know, just ocean films. I think the scenes alone of what we saw. Horror, horror,

ocean films.

Well, I think, I think, I don't think people would get, I think people who are into like nature documentaries and nature thing. I don't think they would be incredibly grossed out by that. Um, I wasn't really grossed out at all. Any point of that film.

Okay.

Like there's gore. Yeah. Um, but I was not repulsed. I know I could imagine tons of people watching this film being repulsed and sick to their stomach watching it. Um, but it's not anything less than something you would see, um, on a nature documentary, right? Or, or a movie.

Oh, it's gotta be, it's gotta be rated R. PG

13. Yeah. I wouldn't not give it an R. Uh, I mean, I would recommend this to any 13 year old that wants to be scarred for life. I highly recommend it.

Is that your final answer? That is my final answer. Any

13 year old that just wants to go see a movie about like some whales, father son bonding and just a good old time and really likes, uh, caving if they really enjoy caving they should go see this movie yeah

who i recommend it to i would say i recommend this movie to people who enjoy i would say i would say claustrophobic thriller films so i think that includes a lot of like it is but i mean it's a type of horror it's a type of thriller film where it's like Yeah. I, I found the, the whale father conversation very cheesy. I did my favorite parts of the film. Now that I'm thinking about it, were the shots of just the animals attacking one another in the ocean, like just kind of showing wildlife. I did find those very exciting. And pretty believable. Like one of the early shots is a squid being chased by a whale. And it's just like going through the reeds, all these like other fish are kind of getting caught up by the whale, trying to catch the squid. And I really liked that scene. And then there's another scene later where there's kind of a series of whales kind of fighting other whales. And I found that very interesting too. I thought that was pretty well done. Seemed believable to me. I don't know the first thing about whales, but it seemed believable to me. Um, but yeah, the, oh, actually on the note of being unconscious, I kept thinking of this. So there's at least two, maybe three or four times when the main character gets knocked out. And then we're supposed to believe. So he's only got a limited amount of oxygen. And anytime he gets knocked out, it really doesn't ever end up being for a long enough period of time for it to deplete his oxygen. And so it seems like long spans of time are passing when really, I guess we're supposed to believe it's just like a minute or two every time he gets knocked out, which maybe that's realistic, but it seemed kind of odd to me that he kept getting knocked out every time he's tossed around in the whale. Then he would wake up and still have like 45 minutes of oxygen left. It's movie amounts of oxygen. Movie amounts of oxygen. Yes. So, okay. So how do we want to wrap? Do we want to give a final like sound off of like what