Ben-Hur

Well…Charlton Heston has nothing to worry about, but still a decent film.

2016’s Ben-Hur had some big shoes to fill. That 1959 version was a stellar production that still holds the gold to this day.

It feels  from the get go that 2016’s version was trying it’s hardest not to be compared to that epic. First off, this Ben-Hur seems far more grounded in real life, with a production design that seems more realistic.

Speaking of “realistic”, I loved how they took more from the book Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, by Lew Wallace (The book the films were adapted from) by adding the fact that Juda Ben-Hur and Jesus Christ knew each other back in the day, and how these two effected one another lives, giving a new arch to the story.

The down-to-Earth tone did not effect the movies epic capabilities. The set design of the movie was actually quite amazing. The Roman Colosseum was an impressive set to look at.

Which is the start to the key scene of the movie. The chariot race. that was the part in the 1959 Ben-Hur and the 1925 version that came before, that made those movies. 2016’s action sequence was pretty stellar, but I must admit, in this day and age when most movies give us this type of action, I was not fully blown away this scene, not that it’s not good, but it does not impress as much as 1959’s version.

There were still some great scenes in the film. Like when Ben-Hur was getting trained to be a Chariot rider by Ilderim, a rich African played by Morgan Freeman. Thought I like the scene, this was the movie that made me tired of seeing Freeman’s old spiritual negro dropping knowledge on these white boys routine.

And with that, 2016’s Ben-Hur still does not hold a candle to the 1959 version if  it’s able to point out how tiring Freeman’s archetype is. It was a good effort  to go back to the book and try to sum up something no one has ever done with Ben-Hur,  and the production design was actually remarkable, so was the music added to that design, yet still it does not click altogether to make it epic.