Ben-Hur

Ben-"Hurt"                                                                               2/5

Epic
    When is the Sword and Sandals genre ever not?

Thematic
     A contradiction of vengeance and forgiveness is tied together at the end of the movie, poorly, but its there.

Standout
     That chariot race is worth your price of admission

Original Song
    Only Way Out by Andra Day. Forced like the ending, yes, but still a good song.


Rotten Tomatoes 27%                                   Cinemascore: A-

Ben-Hur is a competent retelling of one of Hollywood's most prolific epics. What works in Ben-Hur justifies why this movie was remade for a third time. The action can be brutal sometimes and the story is both overarching and personal. Unfortunately this movie is poisoned by flaws that weaken the script from beneath the surface. The inclusion of Ponches Pilot made sense and reinforces the stakes and scope of the narrative, the inclusion of Jesus Christ was the opposite.

Ben-Hur suffers the same weakness's that many faith based movies are victims of, it's story is a catalyst for the message not the other way around. If you have followed my blog since last November you'll remember me writing a post "Why I Hate Woodlawn," and many of those sentiments are translated over here. Instead of a story that reflects and shows the cause and effect of a characters actions, the plot gets pushed aside in favor of showing that faith in Jesus rewards its own miracles. I'm a born and raised catholic, but there is a reason why this type of storytelling is both dangerous and unsatisfying. It awards only the blind, and shovels the storyteller to the side.

Ben-Hur is an otherwise good movie that is distorted by the effect of this cardinal sin. Scenes are interrupted by the inclusion of the messiah who flows in and out of the spotlight so that characters can acknowledge his existence. All this for a payoff in the last 10 minutes that muddles the message of the movie. Ben-Hur tries to redeem its themes of violence and vengeance with christ's ideals of mercy and forgiveness in the last scenes of the movie, and the result is clumsy and, honestly, dramatically insulting.

My rant aside there was too much good in Ben-Hur for me to hate, or outright dislike this movie. Both Huston and Kebbell fill their roles nicely, the movie is shot well and at times really great to look at, and two set pieces in particular stand out among the rest from the summer fair. As a remake I can't say this film failed because it makes me want to revisit the classic and that has to count for something. Ben-Hur makes several changes in this 2016 update, some clearly for the better and some else absolutely for the worst.