j* Movie Reviews 2019

Defend Conserve Protect (2019)

I love big boats and I cannot lie! So this looked like it could be very entertaining, and it many ways it was. It harnessed a lot of military-type tropes and music, and made out like it was a anti-whaling war. Which is pretty entertaining. You get the plucky fleet heading off in an excellent game of "find the battleship." And also playing hard in the "we hope they don't sink our battleship" department.

There are some great action sequences where the plucky Sea Shepherd fleet jams itself in between whaling ships and refueling tankers and is well rammed about. In terms of military construction though, it did feel a little unfulfilled without anything getting blown up or sunk, to be honest. I'm also not sure how I feel about them breaking the Bridgette Bardot by removing the engine safeties so they could go fully hooning beyond the boat's capabilities. But it was great to hear the triumphant music swell as the whaling-fleets sail off out of the sanctuary waters. So it was a pretty enjoyable piece of enviro-propaganda... not as well constructed as Blackfish, by any means, but solid.

Having said that, it did raise some interesting issues around gender portrayal. Now I get that all the Sea Shepherd captains are male, and thus their stories need to be prioritised in terms of describing the battle and the tactical action. But from the way we're shown it, the crews of all the Sea Shepherd ships seemed predominantly female and the women don't get much of a voice. I'd have to rewatch it with a timer, but off the top of my head my impression was the whales (voiced male - Dan Akroyd) get more speaking time than the women onboard.

What's more than that, is the way the women are used as kind of emotional window dressing. Mainly we see them when they're doing the kind of grunt work like kitchen work, or de-icing the deck of the boat. This is all valuable crew work for either gender and super-important to keep a boat running. But they're also used quite strangely in moments of crisis. Show us a dead whale? Better show us a bunch of chicks crying. Show us the boat getting crushed between two other boats? Lets cut to shots of women cowering and crying in peril in the mess, fearing for their lives.

There was some weird almost virgin-sacrifice vibes going on here. Or women as stand-ins for Motherly Earth that can only be saved by men. I think the most memorable female speaking part was when a woman who has been shown passing the ship phone like a 1950s secretary is finally allowed to speak into it... to call in a Mayday.

Anyway, I'd have to watch it again to see if that is how it is. But if you like big boats like I like big boats, with a bit of cat and mouse in the ocean, it's not bad.

J* gives it 3 stars.