Misguided and dismal
BEN-HUR Running time: 2hrs 4 min Starring: Ayelet Zurer, Jack Huston, Nazanin Boniadi DIRECTED BY Timur Bekmambetov PRODUCED BY Sean Daniel WHAT’S the point of making a cutrate version of Ben-Hur? Of creating a chariot race so heavily digitised and over-edited that it’s the worst scene in the picture? Of casting lightweights in the leading roles? Of laying a wailing modern pop song over the end credits?
Since its birth as a novel 136 years ago, Lew Wallace’s grand melodrama of a Jewish prince whose life intersects with that of Jesus under Roman rule in Judea has always been a grand event – as a best-selling book, a stage spectacle that toured for decades and two spectacular film blockbusters, silent and sound. Misguided, diminished and dismally done in every way, this latest afterthought will richly earn the distinction of becoming the first Ben-Hur in any form to flop.
The home screen is where this under-produced and underachieving venture would have fit far more comfortably (a two-part, three-hour miniseries was shown internationally in 2010 to reasonable success). It’s possible that Trumpbelt/faith-based viewers might be sufficiently roused to seek this out in theatres, but even they should get the word that staying home and watching the 1959 version, again or for the first time, would be far more gratifying.
Although he plays the secondary role of an African-Arabic horse trainer who provides the four white steeds Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) will command in the big race, Morgan Freeman also has been prevailed upon to lend his Godly intonations to the opening narration, which adjoins teaser-trailer-type footage of chariot racing just to make sure the uninitiated know what’s coming later.
Screenwriters Keith Clarke and John Ridley do a fancy dance to avoid duplicating scenes familiar from William Wyler’s film, and director Timur Bekmambetov hasn’t a clue how to stage a normal dramatic scene in which emotions gradually build and nuances shade characterisation. The camera and actors are all over the place, their movements arbitrary, the cutting constant and unmotivated, the filmmaking has no internal logic, which does neither the drama nor the actors any favours.
Although the big race runs about 10 minutes, roughly the same length as in the previous two films, so much is missing: the introduction of the other drivers and racing teams, the frantic attempts to rescue injured racers from the track, the systematic tipping of the metal fish to mark the laps. Instead, you gets lots of computer-generated gravel and dirt in your face courtesy of 3D, and the preponderance of tight shots and paucity of wide views provide a poor overall picture of the action, eliminating a sense of continuity, spatial relationships and suspense from what’s supposed to be a breathtaking set-piece.
Couldn’t anyone on the creative team see the problem? – Hollywood Reporter