“You spent 5 years a slave after 20 years of privilege and you think you know about suffering?”  

This new release of Ben Hur is the third re-imagining of Lew Wallace’s 19^th century novel, “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ”.   It’s not a remake of the epic 1959 Charlton Heston classic and mercifully it’s not as long. This is, to be more precise, a different interpretation of the novel itself. Movie goers will not need to watch the original to compare notes and as a matter of fact, I would encourage you not to. Watch this movie and let it stand on its own merits rather than trying to see how well it stands in the shadow of Heston’s version.

The plot remains unchanged as Judah Ben-Hur (played by Jack Huston) is a prince living in Roman occupied Jerusalem right around the time of Jesus Christ (yes ladies and gents, your eyes are not fooling you, Rodrigo Santoro, who played Xerxes is playing the Son of Christ) . With him is Messala Severus (played by Toby Kebbell) a Roman orphan taken in by Judah’s family. As we learn about their brotherly bond, we are shown zealots who are rebelling Roman rule as the Romans desecrate their land to build a circus for chariot racing. Time goes by as Messala goes off to make a name for himself and upon his return to Jerusalem he tries to coerce Judah to give him the names of rebels who are against the Roman army. The turning point is when Judah attempts to help a wounded zealot by the name of Dismas (are you paying attention Uncharted 4 players?). He makes a choice that turns his life, and that of his family, upside down forever.

What I really liked about this movie, is that the director, Timur Bekmambetov, chose to stay within the lines of the book and keep the religious message in. This may not please a lot of people but to be frank, in my opinion, movies like Noah and Exodus: Gods and Kings (which had far bigger issues with its casting as well) have not done well because the movies were made to try and please everyone. Thus, the viewer’s miles may vary depending on their beliefs. The problem is when you omit elements from these religious stories that actually shapes the stories themselves, you lose the story and for once I was glad to not get a watered down movie. Yes, Ben-Hur is a fictional story but the religious aspect is the most important part of it and cannot be ignored. I also loved that in this film, the women’s roles shaped many of the characters such as Esther (played by Naznanin Boniadi) who became a disciple of Jesus. Her character was important as it pushed Judah to learn forgiveness despite the hate that he had.

As far as the acting is concerned, I liked Jack Huston’s take on Judah Ben-Hur. It was nice to see him start off as a naïve prince of his land who refuses to take a stand and is content with things as they are. He transforms as he is taken captive and comes back home much more jaded and filled with hate. The one small minus in his performance is that with his transformation, in his voice he almost sounds as if he is trying too hard to be “Batman”. Otherwise, I really enjoyed his performance. Toby Kebbell’s performance is not bad either. You can see his character, Massala is in turmoil as he wants to blend in to the Ben-Hur family but Naomi, (played by Ayelet Zurer) isn’t about to let an idol worshipper influence her family. Morgan Freeman does what he does as he plays Sheik Ilderim who is the one who facilitates Judah’s freedom to become a chariot racer. I have no complaints about his performance ( let’s be real, it’s mind of phoned in)  other than the wig, which I will talk about shortly.

As far as the design and look of the movie, it’s hard to make any complaints as we have become very spoiled by today’s CGI work. To a point, after the success of Gladiator back in 2000, I am shocked that this didn’t come along sooner. Yet of course with a $100+ million dollar movie it’s not that hard to show a turn of the millennia of Jerusalem. Thankfully, the film did not have to rely on CGI in every shot to get its point across. I was really impressed with the costume designs as well as the set interiors for some of the scenes. Most impressive was Pontius Pilate’s (played by Pilou Asbæk who reminded me so much of Russell Crow’s Maximus) costume that he wore at the chariot race.

The one issue I had with the costume was Morgan Freeman’s wig as in my opinion, I wasn’t impressed with it. On one hand, I liked on where the creators were trying to go but the wig just didn’t flow naturally as dreadlocks will do with some people. There is also an issue with Esther’s dress as it seems like she had on the same dress the entire movie in a story that took place over the span of nearly 10 years. Even at a key point of the movie, Judah who is looking like a crazed man, cleans up just a little bit too well late into the movie. Those points didn’t detract from the overall look and feel of the movie.

To answer the big question, yes, the chariot scene was great. It may not have been the full nine or ten minutes of Heston’s movie but it was impactful and I mean that in more ways than one. For a PG-13 movie, it was brutal and violent. I even chuckled at one point when a man in the crowd of Romans hid his child’s eyes from the carnage. But yes, this scene ticked off a lot of checkmarks needed to ensure that it lived up to a movie of this stature. It doesn’t quite live up to Gladiator’s first Coliseum scene, (again due to the PG 13 rating) but it leaves its mark.

Overall, I really liked this movie as I counted this among the few good sword and sandals epics that we have gotten over the years. I also give a lot of credit to the writing of John Ridley and Keith Clarke who really focused on many subjects in this film including racial slavery, colonization, cultural and religious difference and forgiveness. Overall I thought it was a solid story which showed how two brothers with different backgrounds would be forced to make choices to push them out of their comfort zone and see life for what it was. But, it nearly drops the ball towards the end of the movie in an attempt to quickly tidy everything up after the chariot race but it’s solid throughout. As I stated earlier, filmgoers’ like for the story may largely be dependent on your background as this movie does have a religious slant to it. It’s a big risk but at least, it doesn’t have the taint that Noah and Exodus: Gods and Kings had. It’s not the 1959 version and it’s not trying to be that movie but for what it does and how much I liked it, it told the story pretty well.

3.75 Roman Legions out of 5