So I checked out the 2016 remake of Ben-Hur, a movie that really doesn’t want you to think it has all that icky Jesus stuff in it. At least based on the marketing – the ads pretty much assure you this is like Gladiator only with chariot races. It has chariot races, yo. Chariot. Races. Did I mention it has chariot races?
Well, it does have chariot races and also the story of Judah Ben-Hur (a jew) and his adopted brother (a roman) and how they don’t see eye-to-eye about all this jewish revolt against Roman occupation thing. About how things go south and Ben-Hur gets sold into slavery on a war galleon… how he returns to get his revenge against his adopted brother, etc. It’s the same story as the 1959 classic (and also, I gather, the 1800 book which I didn’t realize this was all based on).
This isn’t the train-wreck I thought it was going to be but it’s also not that good a movie. I was rather bored through great swathes of it and, even then, they’ve cut the story back and rushed through portions of it. I think that rush was what ultimately bored me for the rest of the movie since I don’t think it spent enough time setting up the stakes. It’s a small problem, for instance, when Ben-Hur proposes marriage to a woman who was living in his house who I thought was his sister. Probably should have been established those relationships, guys. There’s some montage sequences early on too that also suggest that this is yet another movie this year that’s been hacked to bits.
Anyhow, in among all the sturm and drang over Roman power runs the parallel story of Jesus Christ who pops in an out of Ben-Hur’s story. I was aware that this was the structure of the story from the 1959 version but I imagine anyone who didn’t know this was a remake (like the girl at the concession stand when I grabbed a pop) will be confused about Surprise Jesus as he pops up randomly in bit parts throughout the movie.
The film is produced by Roma Downey who was behind The Bible tv series from a few years ago so I think she’s serious about the biblical angle. However, I don’t think the director, the studio, and the advertisers were quite as serious… in fact, it almost feels like an afterthought in the movie which is a real problem since it’s not an afterthought to the actual story. It makes the movie feel like it takes a sudden left turn at the end…. a good twenty minute Return-of-the-King-Only-with-a-Crucifixion-style coda when it feels like the movie was pretty much done with us.
I will say that the movie looks good and has a good production budget behind it. Good, but not great. There’s a battle scenes set aboard a war galley that’s really good since it’s only shown from the perspective of the slaves rowing (they can see ships out there occasionally, hot pitch gets dropped on them, they have no control over their fates, etc.) The chariot racing scene is not as successful since it’s filmed in jittery shakey-cam with a lot of quick cuts. In between all that its an ok and certainly earnest drama about the two brothers.
The movie stars a bunch of people and Morgan Freeman playing Morgan Freeman. Never complained about Morgan Freeman before but dude is in it for the paycheck… and maybe the free silly dreadlocks they put him in. I mean, sure, he’s got Morgan Freeman’s voice and that’s always a point in a movie’s favor but he’s clearly not trying very hard.
So, yeah, you can miss this movie or see it. It’s not a god-awful trainwreck of a movie, it’s just a little long and yet feels like it’s been cut back to get to the good parts. It has an ending that feels a little unearned and not a little silly. But it’s better than it has any right to be…. which is to say it’s not an abomination.
Score: 70