Title - 2010: Moby Dick (2010)
Director - Trey Stokes
Country - United States
Whether you love them or hate them, you certainly have to hand it to the folks over at Asylum for being quick as lightning to capitalize on any tiny invention, discovery, or even internet meme that they come across as an excuse to churn out yet another monster film again and again. This time out it was the mid year discovery of a new type of ancient whale which was a distant cousin to the modern day sperm whale. But this whale was a wee bit different in that not only were its teeth much larger, but it was double-jawed which meant that it had teeth in its upper jaw as well. This obviously meant that it was quite a vicious hunter and no doubt an apex predator at that time. Of course there was the small problem of the actual whale being only 50 feet in length, but you don't think the folks at Asylum are going to let something like that get in the way do you? A vicious 50 foot long ancient predator simply isn't enough --- let's make it 500 feet! And thus it was so!
We are quickly treated to some character back story as a young late '60s Ahab has his first run in with the mighty white whale and loses his leg in the process. As the credits roll we get a nice montage of headlines in which Moby Dick appears to have developed a rogue wave type of myth about him in that his attacks are known by hardened sailors, but it's not something they discuss or put in reports and so the general public doesn't really know about. After that reading between the lines bit of exposition is handled, the movie switches to our non Ahab required female protagonist Dr. Michelle Herman (Renee O'Connor), a marine biologist who specializes in cetaceans and has made large strides in deciphering their speech patterns. As if Asylum knew that I was watching this purely based on Miss O'Connor's presence, she gets things rolling by establishing her character's ocean cred whilst wearing a bikini top. Why thank you very much Asylum!
Before you even begin to make fun of the oddly green-screened inserted seagulls, a mighty submarine pulls to the surface and plucks both Michelle and her assistant Pip (Derrick Scott) from the ocean and presses them into maritime duty. There they eventually meet the now captain Ahab (Barry Bostwick) who currently pilots a nuclear-armed submarine that he has personally designed to be more powerful and more capable than any sub in existence. Of course he's also kind of an incredibly obvious wacko which makes you wonder how he actually remains in command but there you go, trying to apply logic again in an Asylum film. He lies to everyone aboard his ship and intimates that they have full military clearance to go after Moby Dick as, due to the massive increase in modern radar irritating the crap out of whales (actually that's a real fact), Monsieur Dick has gone on full rampage and is pretty much kinda killing everything he comes across. But sadly Captain Ahab does not have clearance and in fact the military folks up high think he's the one that's gone rogue and is attacking everything. What a dilemma!
Although 2010: Moby Dick fares a bit better than some previous Asylum films in that it does deliver a bit in the monster destruction department, it makes some rather bizarre choices especially in the final act that basically sink whatever fun you were having initially. The acting is also a bit wild and wooly throughout the movie despite having a decent array of actors. Renee is fine in her role but they foolishly give her almost nothing to do once she's aboard the ship. Bostwick chews up his dialogue with crazy abandon, but the dialogue is just so awful his crazy speeches just come off far too silly, and not in a ironic nudge, nudge, wink, wink kind of way either. Surprisingly the main core of supporting actors are all pretty darn good and actually helped a great deal to make some of the clunky dialogue go down smoother. But man oh man, when you switched scenes to the Naval bases things got so ugly and uncomfortable at times that you swear if you stood still and listened hard enough you could hear somebody, somewhere shouting "the producer's brother is on! the producer's brother is on!". Yeah...it's pretty bad.
The effects are typically pretty cheesy for this level or production but at least the creators threw a bunch of stuff out there and let it explode and/or get eaten. Sure all the airplanes and ships looks like funny toys making little cartoon splashy splashes everywhere, but hey we're just here to have fun kids! But once the film gets into the final act for the big showdown things get so totally bats*** crazy that even a hardened bad monster movie watching pro like myself was questioning just what exactly was happening on screen. Did that 500 ft. whale just sneak up on them while they were standing on the shore? Did that whale just fly over the island? Was it jumping maybe? Where did it come from? Did she just out run a multiple nuclear warhead explosion that actually vaporized the entire island and the surrounding water? WHY IS THE WHALE WIGGLING LIKE THAT OVER AND OVER?! MAKE HIM STOP!
So anyhoo...rating or recommending these types of films is obvious very different from your normal kind of cinema endeavor. If you watch this kind of stuff regularly and like it, you will probably enjoy a bit of 2010: Moby Dick, but you will quickly tire when not very enough happens and the ending gets really bizarre and incredibly unsatisfying. They do commit some of the usual modern day monster movie sins of killing too many interesting supporting characters just to up the body count so that by the end we really just don't much care what happens. But that's basically this movie in a nutshell, in the end you just won't care.
Incidentally, for some odd reason the creators of this film decided to cut out the tiny scene of Renee O'Connor's Ishmael character representative Michelle clinging for dear life to the boat that she was piloting when Ahab initially picked her up. The boat's name of course "The Coffin". Get it? Of course this little literature joke explains the odd choice of the name when you see it at the beginning of the film and why Ahab decided to stow it aboard...somewhere, just so they could end on this shot. But since they didn't include it I suppose it's just another lost opportunity. Until we meet again, adieu for now Asylum you big goofs.