6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 3.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Ishmael sees his dream of a whaling voyage come true when he joins the crew of the Pequod, a sailing vessel leaving port in Nantucket. Unbeknownst to Ishmael and the mates, the Pequod s monomaniacal Captain Ahab 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.
Starring: William Hurt, Ethan Hawke, Gillian Anderson, Donald Sutherland, Charlie CoxDrama | 100% |
Adventure | 50% |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Has the Great American Novel already been written, or is it still waiting to be delivered, oracle-like, at some distant future date? That question may not rise to the philosophical heights of whether the Messiah arrived over two thousand years ago or is yet to appear, but if you drop by any high school or college level American Literature course, chances are the debate about this very subject will be as animated as any “discussion” between various religious camps about the second subject mentioned above. It’s a fairly regular occurrence in contemporary literary criticism circles to anoint any major new novelistic undertaking with a questioning “Is this the “Great American Novel” we’ve been eagerly awaiting?”, and more often than not within a few months that particular book is forgotten and the scurrying critics have moved on to a new wunderkind. Of course staunch traditionalists simply laugh in derision at all of the hubbub surrounding new releases and simply point back to America’s rather impressive literary pedigree, bringing up any number of novels that have been around for generations as easily filling the figurative shoes of the Great American Novel. Probably no book has eclipsed Moby-Dick (English majors will know the original novel had that hyphen in the name, which was later dropped by most adapters) in sheer numbers of critics and professors inaugurating it as at the very least a major contender for the title of Great American Novel. Herman Melville’s study of obsession and the vagaries of nature (including human nature) has probably been scrutinized, dissected and analyzed more than any other major work of fiction. Filled with allegory, metaphor and virtually every other literary device imaginable, against all odds Moby-Dick also manages to be a riveting adventure story and it has been repeatedly adapted, with various degrees of success, for both film and television. John Huston’s 1956 film starring a perhaps miscast Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab boasted a screenplay by none other than Ray Bradbury and remained surprisingly faithful—perhaps too faithful for 1950s audiences—to the original source novel, and for years it remained the best known version of the story, despite there having been a silent version in 1926 starring John Barrymore which, while not directly adapted from the novel still had several correspondences to it. With the advent of cable television, other Moby Dicks stormed into view, including a generally well regarded 1988 starring Patrick Stewart as Ahab and former Ahab Gregory Peck as Father Mapple. 2010-11 saw competing versions of the story, one with Barry Bostwick as Ahab and the one under discussion in this review, with a rather impressive cast including William Hurt as Ahab, Ethan Hawke as Starbuck, Donald Sutherland as Father Mapple, Charlie Cox as Ishmael, Eddie Marsan as Stubb, Raoul Trujillo as Queequeg and (in a major departure from the novel) Gillian Anderson as Mrs. Ahab, Elisabeth.
Moby Dick is presented on Blu-ray with a VC-1 encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This made for television film is intentionally desaturated almost all of the time, with a deliberately filtered image that skew toward the slate grey side of things. This approach robs flesh tones of a lot saturation, and indeed a lot of this film almost looks like a moving daguerreotype, certainly something the filmmakers wanted to achieve. Fine detail is best in close-ups though some of the wide shots also boast impressive levels of depth of field and overall precision. Several of the CGI elements are too smooth for their own good, especially the establishing shots of the Pequod's port and Moby himself. The image's overall clarity and sharpness is not helped by the trendy (and perhaps inappropriate) use of handheld, "jiggly" cameras that frequently make individual moments, especially those at sea, little more than a blur. But when things settle down, the image pops rather nicely, despite its desaturation, with excellent fine detail, decent contrast and generally solid black levels.
Moby Dick's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 comes fully alive once the Pequod takes off on its epic journey, but even before that a couple of group scenes bristle with nice surround activity. The opening hour or so of the movie is spent in introducing characters and is therefore a bit on the quiet side, but once we're on the ship, there's some consistent surround activity courtesy of the omnipresent sounds of the ocean and the men moving about the ship. Fidelity is excellent throughout this track and there's some rather surprisingly wide dynamic range employed over the course of the three hour or so film. Dialogue is clean, though occasionally hard to make out due to some actors' over use of dialects and accents. Sound effects are very well integrated into this film and provide a wealth of immersion (no pun intended, considering the film's watery setting).
No supplements are included on this Blu-ray.
Gregory Peck and John Huston distanced themselves from their 1950s Moby Dick, perhaps realizing that the novel may well be unfilmable. That of course hasn't stopped people from trying. While this version has much to recommend it, notably in some very fine turns in the supporting cast, Hurt has a somewhat bizarre interpretation of Ahab that is on the one hand too likable and on the other hand just too patently weird to ever make a lot of sense. The addition of characters like Mrs. Ahab also adds little to the enterprise and will probably do nothing other than alienate Melville purists. Visually this piece as moments of epic sweep and grandeur, though the nonstop jiggly camerawork combined with the watery setting may have many viewers reaching for the Dramamine. Debate about whether we have yet found our Great American Novel may never in fact be settled, but now we have a new debate to consider: will there ever be a Great American Film Adaptation of one of the greatest novels ever written? Time will tell.
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