ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Ploydsge just watch it!

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

turnerwinkel This is an unsuccessful effort with fine actors and beautiful views of the sea and sailing vessels. It is by far the most disappointing performance I have seen by William Hurt, an actor who has given us many fine performances. I suppose it is too much to hope that there will ever be a film that actually spends time on the essential things in the novel, since they are not that cinematic in nature. The most effective part of the film is the representation of Nantucket, replete with a scene from a church service. The ship's masthead on the pulpit is quite striking and authentic. Otherwise, this film struggles to take a new approach to an old subject, but the result is sometimes ludicrous. There are several instances of modern-day idioms which make one cringe, given the context of nineteenth-century speech (e.g. "I'm just messin' with you"). The crew members are shown gleefully singing sea shanties as if this is the real reason they have gone to sea, the camera zooms in on their faces so the audience will see how awestruck they are at the sight of a whale, and the computer-generated image of Moby Dick is just plain laugh-out-loud ridiculous. The crew shouting "Moby Dick, Moby Dick, . . ." sounds like something from a football pep rally. (You almost expect them to spell it out next "M-O-B-Y-D-I-C-K"). Ishmael's narration of the story is minimal, so much so that it seems almost out of place. The totally invented part about the child lost at sea and miraculously found is never explained or rationalized. How did he suddenly become separated and how could Ishmael possibly have known where to look? The film begins with a soon-to-be neurotic and obsessed Captain Ahab having dinner peacefully at home with his wife and child. The ship sets out from Nantucket for some reason. (In the book it is New Bedford. What on earth did this change hope to accomplish?) In short, this movie is part action film, part cartoon.

Bjorn D Unfortunately, this remake should have remained undone. Despite reputable actors, the film does not touch and the tension never arises. The directing and the screenplay is weak, e.g. suddenly we are informed that the Pequod has been to sea for 30 months(!), while it appears as they just left harbor. The madness of Ahab comes out as likable and understandable and the rationality and the sense of Starbuck appears theatrical. The three harpooners play inconspicuous parts in the film instead of adding to the tension. Ishmael - poorly played with a constant snug smile by Charlie Cox - looks simply ridiculous throughout the film. In summary a disappointing remake.

echarlesgoodall The story treatment, production, and acting are all very good. The casting is excellent. The dialogue moves well among the characters. The long fiction takes a while to spin out when reading, and the writers have managed to retain the story in an efficient format. The historical background lays easily under the plot and dialogue and in short long shots. The character development and setup are worth the wait for the ocean drama.doubt though that we would find, in the novel or in the time period, statements like "I didn't sign on for this?" and "Are you OK?". OK for example is a modern word that came about in the middle of the last century, not a hundred years before. Nevertheless, the modern attributes to add to the flow and so I don't object.

kickaxerrr "Moby Dick" is my favorite novel. I have read it many times. William Hurt and Ethan Hawke are two of my favorite actors. So I had high hopes for this movie version. My hopes were diminished slightly in the opening scene where Ishmael, the main character, saves Pip, the future cabin boy, from a beating on the way to Nantucket and brings him along. That scene never happened in the book. Pip doesn't show up until they are all on the ship, but I know that some liberties need to be taken in a translation from novel to movie, so I dismissed it. Then my hopes were completely dashed over the next 3 hours. In those 3 hours there were about 15 minutes worth of film that were actually taken from the book. It is as though the screenwriter read the back cover of the novel, where it says that it is the story of an obsessed captain chasing a white whale and wrote a completely new story based on nothing but that. One of the more obvious things is that, in the book, Ahab, the captain, doesn't even appear until days into the sea voyage when he finally emerges from his cabin. In the movie the first half hour or more involves him at home with his wife and son, neither of which are even in the book at all. Even the climactic ending has been changed a great deal. It would take up too much space to write about all the other things that are completely different from the novel. Basically this is not a film version of "Moby Dick" at all, it is an invention of the screenwriter, based on a similar idea.Forgetting all that, the movie itself, as a movie, is just not that good. The direction is OK and the performances are all relatively good, except for Hurt, who is, as another reviewer said "hammy" and "cheesy". He should have played a sandwich instead of Ahab. The special effects are sub par, considering what can be done nowadays. The whales shown often don't even make a splash when they dive under. They just disappear. The plot is thin with none of the characters really developed in any way, except perhaps for Starbuck the first mate, who is the only one in the movie who seems to even realize what is going on. Two earlier versions, the 1956 version with Gregory Peck and the 1998 version with Patrick Stewart, despite their own flaws were much better movies and more faithful adaptations of the novel than this one. So watch those, or even better read the book.