Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 8:57 pm
The story of Moby Dick set in the modern world.
Barry Bostwick stars as Captain Ahab, commander of the most advanced nuclear sub on the planet.
You know the story, so I won't go into that as they stay about as faithful as they can with subs, nuclear torpedoes, and other modern technology. And yes, it makes some of the dialogue seem ridiculously out of place.
It actually isn't horrible throughout the first half of the film aside from the cheesy effects and bad acting. Where it gets into trouble is the second half of the film when the nuclear torpedoes and really bad plot line with the government comes into the picture.
See, Ahab doesn't have the government's permission to hunt down this whale. Because the whale is a myth, of course. The problem is that this whale sunk Ahab's sub way back in the day with multiple witnesses, and in the present sank a whale watching boat (with a witness), another nuclear sub (who knew it was biological), and attempted to sink a Carnival cruise ship (with a witness). I think the writers have forgotten how quickly information spreads in the information age.
Worse still is how Ahab is portrayed as insane with vengeance. At one point a woman (a whale scientist) screams at him: "How many people have to die? This is all your fault. He isn't hunting us! We're hunting him!" Yeah, the problem with that is this whale sunk two subs, a whale watching boat, took down a helicopter (bit it without any damage to its mouth!), and tried to sink a cruise ship. All without provocation. So Ahab wasn't the insane one. He was the only person on Earth who wanted to stop this giant whale from killing everything on and in the ocean.
Not sure if that was the message Melville was trying to convey...
A pretty terrible film, although probably not the worst concept. Why not update the story? Although, I think a film set in space might work better.
3 out of 10.
Barry Bostwick stars as Captain Ahab, commander of the most advanced nuclear sub on the planet.
You know the story, so I won't go into that as they stay about as faithful as they can with subs, nuclear torpedoes, and other modern technology. And yes, it makes some of the dialogue seem ridiculously out of place.
It actually isn't horrible throughout the first half of the film aside from the cheesy effects and bad acting. Where it gets into trouble is the second half of the film when the nuclear torpedoes and really bad plot line with the government comes into the picture.
See, Ahab doesn't have the government's permission to hunt down this whale. Because the whale is a myth, of course. The problem is that this whale sunk Ahab's sub way back in the day with multiple witnesses, and in the present sank a whale watching boat (with a witness), another nuclear sub (who knew it was biological), and attempted to sink a Carnival cruise ship (with a witness). I think the writers have forgotten how quickly information spreads in the information age.
Worse still is how Ahab is portrayed as insane with vengeance. At one point a woman (a whale scientist) screams at him: "How many people have to die? This is all your fault. He isn't hunting us! We're hunting him!" Yeah, the problem with that is this whale sunk two subs, a whale watching boat, took down a helicopter (bit it without any damage to its mouth!), and tried to sink a cruise ship. All without provocation. So Ahab wasn't the insane one. He was the only person on Earth who wanted to stop this giant whale from killing everything on and in the ocean.
Not sure if that was the message Melville was trying to convey...
A pretty terrible film, although probably not the worst concept. Why not update the story? Although, I think a film set in space might work better.
3 out of 10.