This is one of the worst films of the year. A real mess.
I’ve seen bad films this year but not like Ben-Hur. This is a travesty to cinema. And not because I hold the 1925 and 1959 film versions of Lew Wallaces’ novel to high esteem. This new version is just a really bad movie. Every choice that is made is wrong. From the rapid fire cutting, to the cookie cutter casting and to the gloomy photography. Bad. I just don’t understand. Director Timur Bekmambetov has 100 million dollars, unlimited resounsces, a huge cast and a classic story but this film seems to be made for people with short attention spans and no one else.
Jack Huston plays Judah Ben-Hur and whatever he does in this film will not make anyone forget Charlton Heston. He’s not a bad actor, he’s usally pretty good but here — he’s bland. The production consumes him and his performance takes a back seat to spectacle. The same goes for all the pretty forgetabble faces in this film. The only recognizable face is Morgan Freeman who plays the guy who teaches Ben-Hur how to race. He’s playing Oliver Reeds character from Ridley Scotts Gladiator, which lets face it, was a loose remake of Ben Hur, just without the religious undertones. And a much better movie.
The chariot race in the 1959 film is still one of the greatest action scenes of all time. Looking at that film today, one can make a case for the length, the performances but no one can say a word about how spectacular that sequence is. As Hollywood lore goes, the filming of that race was a experience in itself that to many today is legendary. It took half a year to prepare and film. The race in this new version will not go down in the annals of film history. It won’t go down as anything. It will be remembered as a colossal wasted opportunity to evoke the grandeur of what came before. The race, like the rest of the film, is an overproduced, computer heavy, gloomy, over edited mess.
