"Whalefall" - Inner space.

Whalefall is probably the best movie one can make about a human being trying to survive being swallowed by a whale. That's not a compliment. Whalefall is not a very good movie. During the first half, I had a very strong urge to walk out of the theater, which is extremely rare for me. And I say that as someone who has sat through multiple entire Colleen Hoover movies. During the second half of Whalefall, I was laughing at how silly the movie became. But this movie isn't really about surviving a whale's digestive tract. It's about father and son relationships. Because nothing's as good a metaphor for father-son relationships as stomach acid and bile.

Let's get the big issue out of the way first - suspension of disbelief. Can a human survive being fully swallowed by a whale? No. Did I look into this at all? Of course I did. You think the guy whose top five movie concerns are plot, plot, character development, plot, and absolutely-no-Dakota-Johnson-ever-again wouldn't look up what's in whale innards?

But I didn't look it up so I could take the movie to task over it. It's the premise of the movie and I'm perfectly willing to accept the premise. Just like I'm willing to accept the premise of transforming alien robots or haunted dolls or Dwayne Johnson. I looked it up out of curiosity and discovered that (a) no and (b) the filmmakers added as much realism as they could, but they also took a lot of liberties because, again, no.

So how does this human end up in a whale's gullet? Jay (Austin Abrams) returns home for his father Mitt's (Josh Brolin) funeral. Mitt committed suicide by drowning himself off the coast and Jay decides to search for Mitt's body because "it's something I feel like I have to do." While Jay is searching the ocean floor, a sperm whale is trying to catch and eat a giant squid. As the whale is attempting to swallow the squid, the whale swims past Jay and the squid snatches Jay with one of its tentacles. I saw this entire chase sequence in a preview a couple of months ago and it is easily the highlight of the film. It's dramatic, it's intense, it's visually and auditorily fantastic. It's the kind of scene that's so well done you feel like you are experiencing every sensation that Jay feels and you find yourself peeling your fingernail out of the armrest of your seat after the screen cuts to black.

Before Jay wakes up, we're treated to the first of many flashbacks where a younger Jay is being berated by Mitt. Usually, he's being berated over scuba diving lessons or how the ocean is being destroyed by people or even just because Mitt condescends that aquariums are "fake ocean." These scenes aren't quite as uncomfortable as the scenes inside the whale, but they're in the same ballpark. If you had an overbearing father who was a mean drunk and verbally (if not physically) abusive, you might prefer the whale stomach scenes. On a related note, wow is Josh Brolin a good actor.

These flashback scenes aren't the reason I debated leaving the theater. About ten minutes into the scenes inside the whale, after Jay wakes up, my ick factor was through the roof. It's not that I can't handle body parts or gore or gross scenes in general. It's just that these scenes in particular repulsed everything in me and my brain went "Do you really want to sit through ninety more minutes of this?" I think it was the combination of the Dolby theater pumping the bodily sounds (muscular contractions, dripping, squishing) at a million decibels, Jay's panic-filled actions, the claustrophobic setting (Jay doesn't have much room to move around), and the visuals all working in the exact right way to trigger my flight response. Nothing about it was enjoyable and brain made sure I knew it.

I think that was the real reason for the flashbacks. From a narrative perspective, I know those flashbacks were for character development and metaphorically linking past events to each scene inside the whale. But really, it was to give our brains a break from the ick every few minutes. At least, it was until the movie decided to get an unintentional sense of humor.

Two scenes had me laughing out loud at their absurdity. The first was when the whale has half of its body sticking vertically out of the ocean and Jay is clinging to the whale's voice box, screaming for help at the top of his lungs at a distant boat filled with whale watchers (he can hear the boat and occasionally see it when the whale lowers its constantly-open-for-some-reason mouth). Hilariously, this scene is less silly than when Jay starts conversing with the whale and the whale is talking back in Mitt's voice. Obviously, this is meant to show Jay's reconciliation with his feelings about his dad. But it comes off like a pie to the face. Especially when it becomes a series of deus ex machinas. I think movies are allowed to have one deus ex machina, not six.

Ultimately, I made it through to the end of the film. I was glad it was over for multiple reasons and the ickiness ended up being the least of those reasons. A small reason was I annoyed at Jay for much of the movie for two things. (1) He decided to go searching for his father underwater, in a kelp field, on a cloudy, stormy day...without a flashlight. (2) He kept taking his goggles off inside the whale. Yeah, maybe his dad was onto something with all his berating. Mostly I was glad it was over because, throughout my viewing, I kept thinking of two other better movies that shared similarities with Whalefall. The first was Buried because it also featured a guy trapped in a tiny space trying to get out. The second was Innerspace, featuring Dennis Quaid zipping around inside Martin Short's body in a tiny little ship. Whalefall is the exact wrong ratio of Buried to Innerspace. For most of us, at least. Depends on how you feel about your father and/or whale guts.

Rating: Ask for twelve dollars back and don't say I didn't warn you.