Moby Dick (2011): Call me Bored

I was so keyed up to find out that the library had Moby Dick (2011).  New cinematography, new CGI, new costumes - what could be more amazing, right?  Nobody else in my family was interested, but I popped disc 1 into my laptop and settled down for a good show.

Only to be thoroughly underwhelmed.  I don't know if I even watched half of this miniseries.  It is hard to pinpoint what is so bad about it, but there are three things that stood out to me:

1)  This is a TV production.  The problem is not a low budget and poor design, but, rather, a good budget and excellent design not used to their full potential.  The costumes and sets are nice, but they look like costumes and sets.  Very contrived.

2) The script is pretty lame.  For example: Father Mapple's "Jonah" sermon is shortened (as I would expect in a movie), but it completely fails to mention God giving Jonah a second chance.  Queequeg observes it was too late for Jonah, "eaten" by a fish, to learn his lesson, which Ishmael thinks is funny. This joke falls flat if you know the whole story of Jonah, or, ahem, read the book... 

3) Captain Ahab is everywhere, but he has no stage presence.  Oddly enough, I think he is more like book!Ahab than Gregory Peck's version.  Still, he is less mysterious here than he is in the book.  We get to see him very early on in this show, as opposed to the book/old film where he doesn't show up until later.  Kind of anticlimactic.

Things I liked.  Well, the filmmakers added an interesting aspect to the story: a sort of friendship/camaraderie between Ahab and Ishmael.  Also, I liked Mrs Ahab (played by Gillian Anderson, aka Lady Dedlock in Bleak House); she seemed like a very real character, especially for one mentioned only in passing in the book.  Thirdly, I liked how the people of different ethnicities were portrayed as people, not just "characters."  While the book contains some seemingly racist elements, I think that the international aspect of the Moby-Dick story translates well to this adaptation.  The fact that men from different countries united under Ahab's will and rule is an important, symbolic point. 

Content-wise...  They show Queequeg naked from the back, and they come a little too close to showing him from the front, too.  Just skip the scene where he meets Ishmael. 

I LOVE the book and I have patience to watch long productions, but this one wasn't worth it, and it had nothing to do with length.  Save yourself the disappointment and watch an old classic like the 1956 version, or even The Old Man and the Sea, instead.