Moby Dick

I just finished watching this and I don't have time to write an extensive review, but I will say a couple of things about this production.

Many, many liberties were taken with the plot. In fact the opening scene may blow you right out of the water. And Caption Ahab has apparently been swayed by New Age sharing and caring! But the essence of Melville's work may be considered intact if you take the view that he was a Transcendentalist, along with Whitman and others of that era.

If you hold to that interpretation of this production you may enjoy it on that level (see Jed Mckenna's "Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment" for more on that). In fact if you hold to the conventional interpretation- that of a psycho-social critique of man's hubris against Nature, you will also probably be satisfied at the thematic level.

A few fine scenes but Ahab's wild and fantastic speeches are missing - which to me are the greatest of joys.

The treatment of the finale is decent.

Good luck!

After non-stop disappointment at the movies this Summer, the latest being Cowboys & Aliens for so many reasons, this "freebie" on Encore came as a very pleasant surprise. William Hurt as Ahab was rock solid and while this may sound like heresy, was more fully rounded and interesting than Gregory Peck, whose monolithic performance embarrassed him in later years, and he didn't mind saying so in numerous interviews. (Still he had that great baritone voice) The supporting cast was fine (Ethan Hawk a bit too contemporary) and the production values commendable given the constraints of the budget. Liberties were taken from the classic novel but far from a dumbing down. And the finale, a virtual battle with the white leviathon was surprisingly effective if not all together a solid action set-piece....... far more so than anything in the aforementioned Cowboys and Aliens. I would have to say its worth checking out for most tastes and nothing too objectionable for kids over seven if they can deal with the hunting of whales.

(7.5/10) My husband and I picked it up at our local rental place and we were surprised at how well it was done. Really strong performances from William Hurt and Ethan Hawke as Ahab and Starbuck, and the rest of the roles were well-cast, too. The filmmakers managed to capture a lot of the symbolism and themes of Melville's novel, and if you think about what was happening in Melville's time (civil war was brewing, American society seemed to be disintegrating), the mini-series makes it clear that the story was about much more than a Nantucket whaling expedition. Melville was issuing a warning to his fellow Americans that still has resonance today. We're Canadian, so it was fun to see that much of the movie was filmed in Nova Scotia. The whale special effects were a little weak at times, but otherwise, well worth watching.

It seems that each filmed version of Moby-Dick is compelled to be worse than the one before and that each embodier of the partially disembodied Ahab must make his predecessor seem better, not just in the distance of time but also in distanced performance. Who will underperform William Hurt I hope never to see. Each scriptwriter also must feel a need to demonstrate the superiority of Melville's original, both in his concept and execution. The most recent version appears somewhat like a Second City take on Moby-Dick Meets The Outsiders: all the tortured Jugendangst! Ethan Hawke does do a good C. Thomas Howell sendup, but Hawke should rather be doing a good performance of a first mate, one who is one step below the ship's master. Even the Pequod gets nonverisimilitude. A square-rigged whaler gets turned into a bark. If people cared enough to write, finance, film, and present what is generally regarded as a if not the preeminent work of American fiction, why was care and cash not more carefully scripted and directed? Even the cgi attempt at the whale of whales had the look of an audition submission for an early ScyFy project.

As the novel opens, 'Call me Ishmael' are the first words of the sole survivor of a lost whaling ship as he relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick. They are words that have become often quoted by many authors and poets and for any number of reasons, yet they open the mysteries and beauties of one of the greatest American novels every written. There have been many cinematic productions of MOBY DICK, Herman Melville's 1851 supreme novel - 1956 with Gregory Peck as Ahab and 1998 with Patrick Stewart in the Ahab role - and each has its strong and weak points. There are many detractors of this current version who rightfully state that too few of Ahab's great speeches and lines have been omitted and that this version is too influenced by contemporary reasoning. But the tale is a great one and the splendid extended reveries and 'speeches' of Captain Ahab rest beautifully on the written page, a factor that allows mulling over the words and the meaning and the drama that may just fall a bit heavy when incorporated into a screenplay. Better the flavor of the story be conveyed by what cinema allows - imagery - that books can't mimic. This current version does just that - it finds the core of the obsession of a man driven by a struggle with his past, with nature, and with the personal vendetta against the great white whale, Moby Dick, who claimed Ahab's leg in the past. Nigel Williams is responsible for the screenplay, Mike Barker directs.

Ishmael (Charlie Cox) sees his dream of a whaling voyage come true when he and his Hapoonist friend Queequeeg (Raoul Trujillo) join the crew of the Pequod, a sailing vessel leaving port in Nantucket. What Ishmael and the mates don't initially appreciate is that the Pequod's monomaniacal Captain Ahab (William Hurt) is taking them all on a mad and personal mission to slay the great whale Moby Dick, an obsession that will open their eyes to the wonder and spectacle of man, of beast, and the inescapable nature of both. The flavor of the crew is well captured by a solid cast, including Ethan Hawke as a rather weak Starbuck, Eddie Marsan as Stubb, Billy Boyd as Elijah, Billy Merasty as Tashtego, Onyekachi Ejim as Dagoo, Matthew as Flask, James Gilbert as Steelkit, Gary Levert as Perth, and Daniyah Ysrayl as the cabin boy Pip. The special effects offer vivid and credible underwater activity of Moby Dick and the clashes with nature both within the crew and on the ocean are very well represented. The final underwater scene with Ahab strapped dead to the still alive and swimming Moby Dick is unforgettably realistic and a fine balance with the ever-innocent Ishmael grasping the empty coffin as the sole survivor of the voyage.

William Hurt gives us a different Ahab in Nigel Williams' script adaptation - less mad but more obsessed, less cruel and more vulnerable than we are used to seeing - but he is strong and takes us with him as he meets his end in his struggle with Nature. It is a moving adventure and despite the omissions that seem to bother most viewers, the movie does cast a spell over the entire 3 hours.

Grady Harp