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Author
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Topic: Ben-Hur (2016)
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 09-13-2016 11:18 PM
The last (thank heavens) train-wreck remake of the summer of 2016, this is a movie that I was really rooting for... I really wanted it to be good, even though there was almost zero chances of this version ever coming close to the 1959 classic, which is one of my favorite movies.
But after I found out that the people responsible for dreck like "Son of God" and "Risen" were involved as producers, I started to lose hope. Those movies were cheesy and pandering. Turns out my fears were well-founded: This movie takes those cheesy and pandering qualities, lathers them over a story that needs to be told slowly and carefully, and puts the whole thing into fast forward.
Morgan Freeman, who I used to really like, gives his usual one-note performance in this movie as Sheik Ilderim, owner of the horses that Ben-Hur eventually drives in the big chariot race. Jesus Christ, who was treated with great respect in the '59 movie by keeping him as kind of a mysterious presence, is all over this movie spouting preachy lines and looking like a matinee idol. He comes off as pompous rather than caring.
The pivotal action scenes, especially the chariot race, have the weird quality of being more intense than the 1959 movie, yet at the same time less satisfying and less realistic. In the race, you can almost feel the dirt hitting your face, but you can't tell what's going on due to the choppy shaky-cam cinematography and the over-the-top CGI.
I loved the rendering of Christ's crucifixion in the 1959 movie because it was all done very matter-of-factly. No drama, no music, very businesslike. It probably is the closest depiction to the way it actually happened that's ever been put on film, outside of possibly "The Passion of the Christ" (which I haven't seen). In this movie, we get sweeping camera crane shots, big orchestrations, lots of noise, all of which strips the whole scene of the dignity it should have. Plus, for a while there, the movie becomes about Jesus - but the story is NOT about Jesus, the story is about Ben-Hur. Jesus hijacks the movie! This movie clubs you over the head with the redemption theme rather than letting it seep into your soul.
The ending is the dumbest. The story as told in the 1959 movie was heart-rending, and you realized that not everything is a happy ending and there are consequences to your actions. And that not everybody is capable of redemption, even when facing death. In this movie, after Ben-Hur has won the race by nearly killing Messala and causing him to lose a leg, the two mortal enemies square off in an "I WILL FIND YOU...AND I WILL KILL YOU!!" type argument, yet within 30 seconds, they're hugging each other and then they literally go riding off into the sunset, and all is right with the world. Virtually everybody in the movie, including the bad guy, has a happy ending. (Well, except Jesus, of course.)
The end credits are like a rotten cherry on top of a melted milkshake. As a coda to this supposedly dignified, epic movie, you see the major credits zooming around and kicking up fake dust in a sequence I have a feeling was inspired by the opening credits in the first Superman movie in the 1970s, and accompanied by one of the most annoying pop songs in recent memory. On a lot of movies I like to stand in the back while the audience is leaving and listen to the music; with this one, my main instinct is to turn down the volume.
Like so many of today's movies, this one takes a story that started out as a believable, relatable tale and turns it into an action movie that makes no sense on almost every level. Maybe Spielberg should have done this movie instead of "The BFG" -- he probably would have done it more justice.
1.5 stars from me --- half a star for the movie, and an extra star for the set design, which is the best thing about the film. Too bad the camera sweeps over everything too fast for the viewer to see most of it.
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