The film begins with an older middle-aged man named Mitt Gardiner, who is coughing severely. Shortly after, he jumps out of the boat. Then the captain begins to cry.

A year has passed. Mitt’s son, Jay, has come home from college. He is spending quality time with his mother, Zara, and his sisters, Eva and Nan.

Even though everything is going fine at the moment, Jay reflects on how his relationship with his father wasn’t exactly the healthiest. Despite that, he is still deeply traumatized from losing his father. Not only that, but when his dad was terminally ill right before he died, Jay never bothered to read his letter.

At some point, Jay goes into a store and meets a friendly man that his father used to know. Then Jay resumes his plan to go scuba diving in order to find his father’s remains. He hopes that this will bring a proper emotional closure.

Jay has lots of flashbacks about how his father was a little too tough with him when it came to learning how to scuba dive and how to wear the gear properly. Yet, he still knows what to do and continues his mission.

After going into the water, Jay sees some fish swimming around. In addition, he sees a squid, which seems to be panicking like crazy.

If that’s not stressful enough, a big sperm whale shows up. Even though it is intending to eat the squid, the whale accidentally swallows Jay, as well.

While unconscious, Jay has a brief, bittersweet meeting on a boat with his latest father. Sometime later, Jay gets off the boat and swims away.

Jay wakes up seeing that he is inside the whale stomach. He notices the dead squid, too.

He starts freaking out because he is trapped. What’s worse is that he is also running out of oxygen as the time goes by.

Right now, he is okay. But that might not last very long.

However, he is lucky enough to spot a bioluminescent jellyfish. He uses that to light his way while inside the whale.

Later, the whale actually goes up to the surface to breathe. Hoping for an opportunity to finally escape the creature, Jay uses the jellyfish’s light and climbs up the whale’s esophagus.

There’s even a tourboat nearby. Jay shouts for help and tries to get those people’s attention.

Unfortunately, they cannot hear him. Not only that, but he fails to get out of the whale – which goes back into the water.

Once again, Jay falls unconscious. Even worse, he has very little oxygen left.

Now desperate to get out as an emergency for his own life, Jay finds different ways to stab the whale open – including the squid’s beak. But he has no luck so far.

But there is a pod of orcas coming to try and eat the whale. Regardless, Jay is now severely injured and has hardly any oxygen left. He is willing to accept his death.

But is there still hope for him to survive?

Despite the promising premise and previews, I will admit that the first several minutes of this film were a bit boring. At times, there was not enough tension.

In fact, I was considering leaving the movie theater early due to its inability to engage me. Luckily, though, that changed once Jay went scuba diving.

The rest of the movie kept my attention. And that was because the tension levels increased so much. I would constantly worry about what was going to happen with Jay.

Regardless of the drastically raised levels of conflict. I thought certain parts were gruesome, gory, and gross. I kept closing my eyes during moments with too much blood.

Yes, that adds realism. And the whole premise and tone of this movie is supposed to be a lot different than the scene in 2003’s Finding Nemo, when Marlin and Dory were in a whale (which was obviously sugarcoated and heavily sanitized to remain family-friendly).

Nevertheless, I powered through it. And honestly, there wasn’t nearly enough gore and blood to make me want to give up on the film altogether.

But overall, I thought, Whalefall was just okay. If the first several minutes had been stronger, maybe my opinion would have differed.

I give this movie 3 out of 5 stars.