Product: Moby Dick [VHS] (1998)
Rating: 4.0
Vastly superior to the Huston version
I find it puzzling at how much people love the 1956 film version of Moby Dick, and bash the 1998 film in its favor. Franc Roddam's version of Moby Dick is not a remake of Huston's highly overrated film. To say so is like saying that Herman Mellville didn't write the book. This movie is better than most other made-for-cable flicks I've seen, and though it is not without its flaws, it has more dramatic punch and stronger performances than the Huston version. Gregory Peck can be a teriffic actor (To Kill a Mockingbird), but Ahab is far from being his greatest performance, let alone among his greatest roles. It's one of his worst, in fact. Come on, who would believe Ahab as an enemic, muttering (and as Pauline Kael put it) stock company Lincoln? Patrick Stewart is much more convincing in the role, and puts more energy into his work. Roddam changes the sequence of events in the book, but it's told in more detail and is truer to Mellville's book, whereas Huston skims over the material and leaves us with a rushed and unsatisfying story (people who say it is much more faithful to the novel have either never read it, or are relying on what they read from some abridged junior edition). If a person who's not seen the 1998 version, and reads the numerous reviews in favor of Huston's bland film and Peck's awful performance as Ahab, here's a review with a differing viewpoint.