IN THE HEART OF THE SEA (12A, 122 mins)

Director: Ron Howard

3 stars

There are two stories being told in Ron Howard’s epic seafaring adventure, which begins with Ben Whishaw as writer Herman Melville, who is looking for inspiration for the story that will become Moby Dick. He turns up at Brendan Gleeson’s Nantucket home in 1850 asking him to tell the story of his time on whaling ship the Essex.

He reluctantly agrees to talk, so we go back to decades before, when he was just a lad on board the Essex, his first sea voyage. Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) is to captain it, or so he thinks, but an inexperienced captain is appointed thanks to his privileged family position.

In the early part of the 19th century, demand for whale oil has gone through the roof, sending men out into the depths of the oceans to find it at great peril.

It’s a hard life, with whalers at sea for years at a time trying to find oil from enough whales to fill their holds.

Pickings are slim, but in Ecuador they hear of a vast field of whales out in the empty Pacific. Here be monsters though, and they also hear talk of a 100 foot demon.

They find the bounty that was spoken of, but it does come with this leviathan, a whale bigger than their ship who proceeds to terrorise them.

It’s Moby Dick without an Ahab, and without that obsession to drive the story it ends up being a little dry. But it’s still a rousing and spectacular adventure in places, if very earnest, particularly Whishaw and Gleeson’s scenes.

Mostly there’s a pleasingly old-fashioned sea yarn at play here, one that’s dreamily romantic and sweeping. Sets are handsome, although there’s a bit of CGI overkill, even for what should be simple shots of guys in row boats, and this distracts somewhat.

Chase is a commanding presence at the centre of it, and while he’s no Ahab he’s worth following on this journey, where the real story is man versus nature and the eternal greed for oil.

DADDY’S HOMe (12A, 96 mins)

Directors: Sean Anders, John Morris

3 stars

There's an occasional subplot in Modern Family where Gloria's no good ex-husband comes back to stir up trouble for a short time, much to the vexation of new husband and stepdad Jay.

That's the basic set-up for this amiable comedy in which Will Ferrell plays the stepdad who worries that his new wife’s children haven’t accepted him, with a few fun early gags in which the kids adorably demonstrate how true that is.

Mark Wahlberg is the cool and dangerous ex who swaggers back into their lives, and while they initially tolerate each other, things grow increasingly acrimonious as Wahlberg decides he likes being back, which leads to Ferrell trying too hard to keep up with him.

Cue a lot of silliness, much of it surprisingly funny thanks to the well timed gags and likeable characters, and while it's a little sturdier than just being held together by its jokes, it’s not by much.

When it reaches for the flashy set-piece it tends to overextend itself, but there are more than enough laughs in the deadpan dialogue to qualify it as a success.