Product: Moby Dick [VHS] (1998)
Rating: 2.0
Simply awful
I know its very hard to bring a book like Moby-Dick to the screen, but at least John Houston tried in the 1950's. This made-for-TV adaptation makes me wonder if the screenwriters and director even read the original book. Not only is the character of Queegueg depicted incorrectly as a Mauri of New Zealand (in reality Melville based the character on the Nuku-Hivans), but he is treated as a buffoonish and stereotypical "savage" which is completely at odds with the dignified character that Melville created. Additionally, the filmmakers dreamt up a bizarre scene where the Pequod is stranded in the ice of the Antarctic! They must have been reading Mary Shelly's Frankenstien at the time. Patrick Stewart's performance as Ahab however, is wonderful, but that's the only redeeming feature of this overblown mess.