This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Blistering performances.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Herman Melville's Moby Dick is a brilliant book in every way, but it has proved to be a very difficult one to adapt. As an adaptation fans of the book will find much to complain about with this version, but an adaptation stands a fairer chance at being judged on its own. In that regard this version has its moments but falls short. It is well-shot and edited, the authenticity of the costumes, scenery and the production design is to be admired, the music is rousing and haunting and there are three bright spots. Eddie Marsan is very likable and charming, Ethan Hawke brings a moving quality to a conflicted character and Raul Trujillo is a fun Queequeg. The cast is a talented one but apart from those three actors it falls flat. Gillian Anderson could have been a bright spot but she is so dour that she comes across as unusually dull while Charlie Cox has one expression only literally and that's smug but that Ishmael is very one-dimensional does him no favours. More problematic is William Hurt, who initially seemed a great choice for Ahab but tries way too hard so Ahab's vengeance and complexity is lost, he really overeggs the pudding here and shouts and strains his way through the role. How Moby Dick is rendered is one of the adaptation's major failings, the adaptation gets the colour and the way he swims exactly right but the CGI for the whale is often lousy and too over-proportioned. The script also fails, sometimes there is some of Melville's prose but a lot of it does sound too modern and it noticeably jars. The characters have very little depth, Starbuck excepted, Ahab is one of the most fascinating characters in all of literature but seems too humanised at the beginning and later becomes too much of a clown due to how Hurt portrays him. The back-stories were a good idea but don't say very much and a lot of them drag on for far too long, the first forty minutes in particular are quite pedestrian. The story is short on suspense and the first half drags quite badly and doesn't get much better, ending with a very contrived finale that is choreographed like a mix of playground antics and cheap video-game. In conclusion, has moments but lacking in a lot of areas. 4/10 Bethany Cox

OK, I saw this on cable and only recorded the 2nd half. Considering the other reviewers' bashing of the 1st half, I should be thankful. I really liked Hurt's performance. I had a feeling that Ahab was vulnerable. Maybe that is not historically accurate, because ship's captains are often portrayed as being in absolute control. However, if you are leading your crew to certain doom and neglecting the easy money, then you are likely to have an insurrection. The CGI was fine, no complaints. Its just hard to capture the enormity of the whale, and how terrifying it must be in a small boat with an unpredictable giant toying with you. Its a giant you can only catch a glimpse of in real life, so how do you portray that on a screen ? I just with the there had been a slower ending. After that powerful conclusion, it should have drawn out the scene of Ishmael floating in a vast empty sea to let the audience digest the powerful and terrible tragedy that has just occurred. The sad singing at the end could have really set the tone, but instead they just rolled the credits. If only I could re-edit this film, this could be the one that is required viewing for all English students after reading the book.

There is something captivating about Encore's 2 part version of Moby Dick. While the other reviews are accurate to point out: Ethan Hawke seems clueless, as if he isn't even sure why he is on a ship; and Hurt is hammy and often hard to understand. Somehow that adds to the charm.The Pip being rescued from Ish early on is indeed out of place and completely unrealistic. It feels like a deleted scene from Lord of the Rings part 1, and the rest of the adaptation contains similar out of place, unrealistic scenes.There is still a strong draw to it. The charisma of QQ and the various bro-mancing while playing dress up on a boat, pretending to be whaling, it's hard to pin down what makes it work for me.It's not "so bad it's funny" as much as it's, so oddly put together it becomes compelling. After every scene I wonder if I missed something, or why I don't understand the Starbuck character yet, I marvel at the crew's willingness to cheer after ho-hum speeches about revenge, and the hot potato blame game going on with the crew.The Ahab back-story is ludicrous yet Gillian Anderson is just fun to watch on screen and the "love story" with Hurt, I could watch that for hours on end as I never quite get where it's going, or what the point is. I'm on edge waiting for some plot point or character development that remains out of reach.It's like Moby Dick himself, it's a tease for most of the 2 parts, yet I've watched this now a few times over, each time trying to catch something that I'm missing, perhaps the real story is just another few scenes away, or maybe I missed something when I got up for a drink of water? It reminds me a little of a Christopher Nolan film, it's pretty, full of hammy actors and I always feel like there must be another explanation that got cut or edited."Go deeper" indeed.

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