Disclaimer- anything would be sufficiently entertaining at 4 am, which is incidentally when i watched this.so. you meet Ishmael; you like Ishmael. he's wide-eyed and kinda naive (yet adorable), so you expect character development. it never comes. he seems to get more naive as time passes, somehow, and it's irritating. he also experiences two whole emotions, these being (1) vaguely apprehensive (2) mildly confused. he's cute at first; then he's just stupid. ahab is doing The Most and has a weird crush (?) on Ishmael. actually everybody has a huge crush on Ishmael, which is entirely valid but also kind of hilarious.Starbuck is actually really good (even though he's 12 times more subtle than everyone else, which kinda stands out). You feel for him. He made me cry and I'm not a crier. now im crying again.They occasionally show the very cute friendship between Ish, Queequeg, Dagoo (whom i love), and Tashtego but it's not developed much and is really only proven by a prolonged group cuddle session (which is not in itself a bad thing). speaking of, where's the We Are Married scene? just saying. pip is adorable and sweet and i love him.there is gratuitous cgi whale. meh.there are pacing issues. you're like, "okay we're on day 1 of the voyage" and then they're like No It's Been 13 Months Somehow. like, I understand that you have to skip Ishmael's whale anatomy lectures from the book but there's some ~critical~ stuff that they shouldn't have left out (like character development! and the sperm squeezing scene (squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all morning long). and the queeshmael cuddle sesh. ooh, also the whale penis coat. what a nice book).this could have worked with more than two parts and somebody on standby to tell Hurt to chill. there's a lot of plots that are started and never finished satisfactorily (ex. Mrs Ahab's storyline). But maybe i'm just a purist. idk. it was a decent reason not to sleep.

This low budget production of Moby Dick stars William hurt as William hurt and Ethan Hawke as Ethan hawke, treating Ahab and Starbuck as anything but literary iconography. There are some half decent early scenes showcasing Ahab as a husband before setting off on the ill fated Pequod. The ship looks like a kid brother vessel to the massive version in John Huston's film with thirteen sails. Ahab wins over his crew promising a Spanish gold piece to whoever raises him Moby Dick. He plays this scene with an ill advised sense of good humour before leading his men in a tacky chant of "moby dick" as if they were Atlanta Braves fans doing the chop. As for a Moby Dick himself, I almost don't even remember him being in the movie. There are no memorable shots or screen appearances of the great White Whale. The movie even sidesteps the iconic sequence where Ahab leaps on the whale's back and takes harpoon to him. It is entirely possible that this was written out to avoid the expense of such a shot. This Moby Dick goes down with the Pequod.

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

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!