This is so overrated. I thought it was going to be good. 7.4 no. 3 is more like. This story line is awful. The ending is awful. It is not scary at all. Moby Dick (1930) is better. Jaws is very good movie. This has got to be one of the worst monster movies I have seen. It is so bad the Moby Dick (1998) is better. And that was an awful movie. If you what to see a really scary monster movie see Jaws 2. Or Jaws 3. This a a very scary movie. And this is a big pile of Whale pooh. Do not see this movie it is a waste of time and life is to short. Do not wast your money. If you see movie you will waste your money. If you want to see a good movie see Jaws the revenge.

I enjoyed the heck out of this movie. It's an honest attempt to bring the great novel to the screen, and there is no reworking or Hollywoodizing of it. The story progresses and the characters are believable.There is, however, a continuing flaw in many movies when an actor of the wrong age is cast for a particular part. This gives us things like a 22-year-old kid playing Superman and 70-year-old Robert Mitchum playing a World War Two Navy captain. (Captains are typically in their early 40s.) That happens here. Gregory Peck effectively conveys the obsessive madness of Ahab, but he is just plain WAY too young. Melville's Ahab is 58, which was considered old in the middle of the 19th century. Peck himself is said to have noted he was not right for the role and that it demanded more than he had in him at that age.Here's a thought.This happens in reverse in another superb seagoing film, "The Caine Mutiny" (1954). Humphrey Bogart, then over 50, plays a 30-something Navy LCDR. Again - Bogie nails the part, but he's just plain WAY too old.What if we go back in time and have Bogart play Ahab and Peck play Queeg? Bogie would be marvelous as the mad, obsessive Ahab, and Peck could bring off the dark, disturbed, unbalanced Queeg just right.Both are marvelous movies with terrific lead characters - but both stars are twenty years wrong in age.Get the DVDs and view both and see what you think.

Movies set in the age of sail used to be a Hollywood staple. Unfortunately the ships were often under the command of captains who revealed the inadequate screening procedures of their superiors. The moment they sailed, the captain's repressed mania and anger management issues came to the fore."The Sea wolf", "Two Years before the Mast", "Wake of the Red Witch" and the 1935 version of "Mutiny on the Bounty" all featured despotic if not actually deranged ship's masters. By the time "Moby Dick" came along in 1956, the genre was familiar to movie audiences that knew sea monsters were more likely to be found on a ship's bridge wearing gold braid on their caps. John Huston's "Moby Dick" is about the last voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, and its captain, Ahab, who obsessively hunts a huge white whale that had taken off his leg in a previous encounter. Ahab subverts the crew to his cause but the final confrontation between man and beast leaves only one survivor, Ishmael played by Richard Basehart who also serves as narrator of the tale."Moby Dick" is so full of weird characters that they would not seem out of place at a "Star Trek" convention. Apart from Ahab, there is Queequeg the tattooed Polynesian harpooner, wharfside prophet of doom Elijah, and Orson Welles as the ominous Father Mapple.Huston, who had struggled to make this movie for years, enlisted science fiction writer Ray Bradbury to help craft a screenplay from Melville's novel. They made many changes including a significant one to the ending with Ahab entangled in the ropes on the whale's back. In the novel this was the fate of a lesser character while Ahab's death was not as spectacular – the movie version works better."Moby Dick" had two obstacles to overcome; the first was the casting of Gregory Peck as Ahab and the second was the demand placed on the technical crew to deliver a believable, final confrontation with Moby Dick.Huston wanted his father, Walter Huston, to play Ahab, however, the studio wanted a more bankable name. Peck was a popular, romantic star of the 1950's, but critics questioned his suitability for the role. 60 years later, the baggage that Peck carried is gone. Now his performance can be evaluated on its own terms, and Peck has grown into the role.The other challenge was to make the White Whale convincing. Unfortunately most of the action had to be shot in studio tanks. Splashy and artificial, the tank scenes lack the scale of the real ocean. Despite this, many of the scenes with the whale still have power, especially Moby Dick cruising along with old harpoons sticking in his back with ropes trailing behind him.The result was a unique movie experience. Huston's "Moby Dick" breathed life into its strange story and unusual characters. The movie was inspired by a great work of literature, and was made by a great artist of the cinema. It is a flawed masterpiece, but a masterpiece nonetheless.

THE FILM: One day, famed science fiction writer Ray Bradbury got a call out of the blue from John Huston. Huston asked Bradbury to help him write a film adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Bradbury confessed that he had never managed to finish reading the book, but Huston handed him a copy and told him to read what he could. Then Bradbury headed over to Ireland with his wife to write. Even after the screenplay was completed, it took Huston two years before financing could be arranged.Indeed the film lacked a female star, and was about a bunch of men hunting whales. As part of the film's financing arrangement, Huston was forced to cast a big name in the part of Captain Ahab. He chose Gregory Peck, who no one thought would work in the role, including Peck. The shoot was plagued by production issues and multiple "Moby Dick's" were lost. Indeed Peck almost drowned during a scene. On release the film made next to nothing, and critics were generally indifferent to the film. It has yet to make it's budget back.THE PLOT: Any English major could tell you the plot, Ishmael is a stranger who takes a need for the sea. He heads to the town of New Bedford, where he rooms for a night with a mysterious stranger with whom he later befriends, named Queequeg. Together they strike out on a whale-hunting voyage on the Pequod. The Pequod's captain, is the mysterious Captain Ahab whose leg was taken by the infamous white whale Moby Dick, and whose is rumored to have half a heart.It is Ahab who clarifies the Pequod's true mission. They are not to hunt whales, they are to hunt Moby Dick.THE CRITICISM: I have not read Moby Dick, although I have tried. The story was not as familiar to me as it is to many, so I will just clarify something. This is the definitive screen adaptation of Moby Dick. Huston gets everything right. Peck, who has been criticized as wooden in many things, is magnificent in this. His Ahab is an intensely foreboding portrait of evil. Richard Basehart may have been a little old, and his performance may be average, but he allows you to reflect your own feelings and opinion through the character of Ishmael.I hope I do not alienate literary fans who dismiss this as an inadequate adaptation when I say that the film does a great job of condensing the story into an enjoyable film experience. Ahab has been corrupted by the whale, and he has lost more than his leg. He has lost his soul. This is brilliantly conveyed in the performance by Peck, his foreboding glance and scars make him visually scary, but I never found myself to be afraid of him. He most certainly is not 'wooden', the dialog is old fashioned, and I am sure that part of it must have come from the novel.Baseheart does good work, but we never really focus on his character. His character is the lens through which we observe the tragic story of Ahab. The film can feel like an ensemble in parts, and we get time to explore some of Ishmael's shipmates. However, in one of the best scenes in the film, Orson Welles delivers an absolutely sterling monologue containing a parable. Welles dominates in that one scene, although apparently he was so nervous before delivering the monologue, that Huston had to hide a bottle of Brandy on set for Welles to sip from during nervous spells.The screenplay is terrific, melancholy and dark, while containing a mysterious edge that Bradbury and Huston exploit terrifically. Credit must go to Melville's novel, for giving us a beautiful story. However it is the screenplay that condenses the novel without losing it's edge. For some reason I found the film to be slightly satirical, although it is certainly very darkly satiric if this is the case.The cinematography is incredibly interesting. It looks and feels like no other Technicolor film. The colours are not garish as is the case with many films of that era. In fact, even the scenes at sea look like they are actually taking place at sea, and not in a tank or against some kind of backdrop. The film invokes a somber melancholy tone, through the muted pallet of colours. I have heard that the day for night (shooting in day, and darkening the image to make it look as if it takes place at night) technique was used, and it certainly makes sense.Finally to the direction. Huston once again delivers a great film. While the direction may not be as energetic as Wise Blood, or relaxed like The Dead. His direction is key to the success of the film. It's a good thing he does well, admirably. The tone is slow, though not nearly as slow as the novel. It certainly feels that by the end someone is winking at you. That someone may very well be John Huston.Moby Dick, 1956, Starring: Gregory Peck, Richard Baseheart and Leo Genn Directed by John Huston, 9.5/10 (A)(This is part of an ongoing project to watch and review every John Huston movie, you can view this and other reviews at http://everyjohnhustonmovie.blogspot.ca/)