Alright this is the last winner to review from the 50's, and the first among the three movies to tie with the most Oscars alongside Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Here's my 450th review, Ben-Hur.
Plot: Judah Ben-Hur is a wealthy Jewish prince and merchant in Jerusalem. When his old childhood Roman friend Messala comes back to Jerusalem as a tribune, he asks Judah to help capture Jewish citizens who criticizes the Romans, but Judah refuses angering him. During a parade for a new governor, a tile falls from the roof of Judah's house and lands on the governor. Even though Messala knows that it was an accident, he condemns Judah to the galleys and imprisons his mother and sister as a way to intimidate the Jewish population. Judah swears to one day have his revenge against Messala.
This was a great epic movie. It was big, it was intelligent, the art direction and costume design are excellent, it's characters were very well acted, and the story was grand with so many layers to it that it just is remarkable as to how much happens in this 3 1/2 hour long film. Charlton Heston did a great job playing as Judah Ben-Hur giving us such a great big journey that he goes through, he deserved winning Best Actor for his role. This film is also best known for its chariot race sequence which is a scene that you can probably tell that George Lucas copied off a fair bit on when he made the Podracing sequence for Star Wars Episode I: the Phantom Menace. But who can completely blame him for wanting to copy off a scene like this. It was exciting, epic, had great editing, and some spectacular action that at some points was a bit more extreme then you'd think it would be when it came to some of the stunts that they pulled but where no less greatly done. I also really like how the events of the story more or less collide so to speak with the life and death of Jesus. I know some people dislike how the film does that like British film critic John Pym who called the film a "four-hour Sunday school lesson". And I get why considering how it has a sort of Christian theme behind it, but I don't think that makes the film a big torture for people who dislike the Christian faith. To me, while I enjoy it a lot being a Christian myself, I would think that it's not a torture for people who aren't like me considering how most of the moments that have to do with Jesus are generally during the beginning and the end and most of them aren't that very long and are done very smoothly and aren't forced. So if you hate that there's some sort of Christian anything in this movie for whatever reason, I understand. But in my opinion, the makers of the film created this movie in a way that places the Jesus moments in the film in a way that's very basically and placed in reasonable parts that makes it so it isn't forced or is trying to shove the Christian faith down your throat or whatever. If there's one flaw I will admit for sure with this movie, it's that it is probably a little bit too long. Not to say that it needed to the shorter by a huge amount, but maybe a couple scenes needed to be shorter then others.
And that's my review for Ben-Hur. It gave us a grand story with a great leading character, a chariot race sequence that is still memorable today, it may be a little too long and might have issues for you depending on your faith or your personal view of Christianity, but is otherwise a great movie that has little mystery behind being tied for winning the most Oscars with Titanic and The Return of the King.
No comments:
Post a Comment