Moby Dick: The True Story

The true story upon which Herman Melville's classic novel 'Moby Dick' was based. This is the story of the whaler Essex.

I was intrigued by the summary of this documentary and the documentary should have been interesting enough. However, it doesn't really hit the mark.

Part of the problem is that it labours its point re the whaler vs whale war that was occurring. I agreed with the general tone of the documentary regarding the killing of whales, that it was sad and unnecessary, but the film seemed to overdo this, using every opportunity to shoehorn this in. It also didn't help that the expert they got to talk about whales, a marine biologist, seemed like a spaced out hippy.

The survival story was reasonably interesting, as was the background on whales, but everything in between seemed like padding.

For a better, more engaging, more dramatic, covering of the story, watch the feature film 'In the Heart of the Sea' instead.