Movie Review: Ben-Hur
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
It can be very difficult to judge a film on its own merits, especially when it is a story that has been retold several times, and when one of those times was one of the most heavily awarded films in the history of cinema, it has a lot of baggage to live up to. While Ben-Hur has been updated for modern audiences, who wouldn’t dare watch a film older than the 21st century in a serviceable adaptation, it is still a flawed film. Ben-Hur is a film that is merely decent, when it could’ve been great.
Descended from a rich Jewish family, Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) has everything he could ever want, including friendship in his adopted Roman brother Messala (Toby Kebbell), and a happy family home until one evening Messala, when feeling an outcast from the family, goes off to become a soldier in the Roman army. Returning years later a war hero, he asks Judah to help root out revolutionaries who may resent Roman rule and cause an uprising, a request Judah refuses, not wanting to be involved in politics. When one of those revolutionaries nearly cause the death of the visiting Pontius Pilate (Pilou Asbaek), Messala, feeling betrayed and angered, has the whole Hur family imprisoned, with Judah sent to the galleys. After five years of survival embittering him, Judah escapes the galleys and finds a chance for vengeance in a chariot race. With the help of Ilderim (Morgan Freeman), a desert native with a fine set of horses, Judah trains for the race. But if he finds the vengeance he seeks, will it make his life any better?
As a great fan of the 1959 version of the film (and to some degree, the silent 1925 version and its early color segments), it is hard not to compare the Academy Award-winning edition with this one, almost head to head. In some ways, this new one tells the story a bit tighter (about an hour and a half tighter), but that cropped length in many ways works to its detriment as well; in trying to tell the story in a shorter timeframe, we get segments that seem rushed, an ending that is resolved far too quickly, with little time to breathe and take it all in. And for a few times when things are quiet, we have distracting shaky-cam to keep things “in action” even when action is not necessary. And while Jack Huston appears to be a much more age appropriate Judah (despite being only two years younger than Charlton Heston in the part), it wouldn’t be hard to argue who was better in the role. Heston is a scenery chewer, to be true, but at least there is a range of emotions on display, and Heston conveys all of them with conviction. Huston, on the other hand, displays exactly one emotion through the entire movie: deep, raspy mumbling. Even when he smiles or frowns, the same tone of voice comes out of him, and it adds no gravitas to what should be epic proceedings. Neither, unfortunately, does the character of Jesus (Rodrigo Santoro). Despite having an (arguably) bigger part here, the silent visage of the 1959 version at least carried some mystery, that the actors’ reaction gave a sense of the power and charisma of the man even though we never see his face. Here, Santoro tries his best, but his words and presence mean little in the world around him. There could be a case made that this is intentional symbolism, but having expanded his role in the film while giving him little else to do seems like it lessens his impact, not the opposite.
So, lacking a strong lead, a hastily told story, and less impact given to the religious elements, where does the movie stand out? For one, there are some decent to fine performances, especially from the always dependable Freeman. The cinematography and sets are certainly well-done and the on location footage is beautiful, even when buried under a heavily brown and blue color filtering scheme. And as you might expect, the chariot race itself is a marvelous scene. Though many of its wrecks and violence are CG enhanced (a plus or a minus, when you compare the real, horrific injuries that happened in the earlier film versions), they are very effective, and the chariot race would be the standout moment of the film if it were not completely overwhelmed by the nightmarish galley scene. Here is a scene that shows director Timur Bekambetov having a moment to showcase his real strengths, in a scene directly out of a fever dream (and reveals how strange it is to have the director of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter helming a movie of this sort). A scene in which you hear the sounds of battle, but do not see it, accompanied by a man on fire beating a drum while still shouting for the galley slaves to row, is so incongruous to the rest of the movie, and yet the one time we see something truly different which separates this film from its previous incarnations. It is the one time where there is real suspense, real emotion, real pacing, and it is a shame the rest of the movie doesn’t carry that same passion.
Herein lies the true issue with the film: it lacks real passion. It carries its fair share of action, and most of the time it hits the numbers about as well as any movie these days does, but there is a disconnect between the weight of the story and the load any of the people involved carry. Nothing about the movie is bad, in any true sense, but where you could see the love of the production inherent in the 1959 film, that sense of wonder, of excitement, of suspense, of emotion, is simply not as prevalent here. Even its somewhat surprising ending (a truly interesting addition to the tale) does not feel like it captures the feeling that it should have.
Ben-Hur is not a film that will destroy the memories or the reputation of the 1959 release, which remains far and away the definitive film edition of the tale. What we have instead is an epic that lacks epicness, a religious experience without the wonder, and a tale of redemption whose joy is buried under muted, subtle performances and a brownish color scheme. It is not a bad movie; it’s indeed serviceable and better than average. But the disappointment is not with what is onscreen, it is with what’s not. It’s knowing with a little tweaking, a few edits, an extra take or two, and we wouldn’t have something better than average; we’d have something much greater.
Seth Paul
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