With such rich source material and a near bottomless barrel of timeless literary themes available, how does Ron Howard miss with In the Heart of the Sea, his adaptation of Nathaniel Philbrick’s best-selling book about the real-life events that inspired the great American novel Moby Dick? The film’s shortcomings begin with Howard himself, who has struggled of late to regain the once-bright shine of his Hollywood star. Never one to dabble much in the intangible concepts behind a plot, Howard has always been more comfortable as a straightforward A-to-Z storyteller. And what A-to-Z commercial success he’s had with films such as Apollo 13 and The DaVinci Code!

Sharing a bloodline with Melville’s fish tale, the story being told in In the Heart of the Sea begs for a secondary level of thematic exploration… something Howard just doesn’t do well. Too bad. The result is a rather bland man vs. nature tale that occasionally hits full steam with its glossy production and handful of worthy performances, but mostly flounders adrift on the high seas.

Chris Hemsworth leads the cast as Owen Chase, A Nantucket whaler who dreams of helming his own ship. But born outside the whaling caste system of the 1820s, he’s relegated to first mate on The Essex under the command of green but arrogant Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker). Both men are of great honor and tremendous pride, so it’s not long before we realize that Chase will struggle to get along with the brash young Captain whose poor decisions eventually put The Essex in great peril.

Their first conflict comes when the ship gets torn apart by a treacherous squall that rips her sails and splinters her masts. But rather than return to port for repairs (as suggested by Chase), Captain Pollard sails on with hopes of filling the Essex’s holds with valuable whale oil. The action soon ramps to heart-stopping levels once the crew finally happens upon a large pod of whales. The bravery of these men who launch into dinghies (without life jackets, mind you) smaller than the whales they’re after and row towards the roiling danger is unimaginable. Once harpooned, all hell breaks loose as man and whale are thrust into an epic battle of survival as the whales plunge to the depths while the men try to keep their boats from being pulled under. Incredible stuff.

These whale hunt scenes are absolutely fascinating and represent some of the film’s best moments, but unfortunately there are far too few of them. The film’s pace comes to a screeching halt when The Essex is smashed to bits by a revengeful white whale (actually patches of pale, peeling flesh) that renders what’s left of the crew adrift in rowboats for months. These extended stretches of watching the men basically starve to death are extremely tiresome and nearly unwatchable. We got enough of it in last year’s Unbroken and it was handled much more effectively in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. We get it. They are tired. They are hungry. They do desperate things. Not sure what is the right amount to get the point across, but In the Heart of the Sea surpasses it.

The closest semblance of creative storytelling comes in the form of a framing device involving Ben Whishaw as a timid young Herman Melville who tracks down and interviews Brendan Gleeson as Thomas Nickerson, the only surviving member of the ill-fated whaling mission. The mind-numbing scenes of survival at sea are occasionally broken up by the interview which, of course, becomes the source of Melville’s eventual novel.

Although In the Heart of the Sea has its occasional moment of fascination, it works better as a captivating historical piece about the New England whaling culture of the early 19th century than as a tale of heroism being tested beyond limits. Somehow, despite all that time spent adrift with the men, we never get to really know them, and there’s precious little time spent with the whale.

Had the script, written by Charles Leavitt, more often visited the target-rich source material and had Howard more creatively presented those timeless literary themes of ambition and sacrifice, animals and nature, and life and death, In the Heart of the Sea might have reached its goal. But that’s not what Ron Howard does. His In the Heart of the Sea end up as a poorly told whale of a tale.

(Released by Warner Bros. and rated “PG-13” for intense sequences of action and peril, brief startling violence, and thematic material.)

Review also posted on www.franksreelreviews.com.