Ben-Hur review: Timur Bekmambetov adapts Lew Wallace’s novel – but can it match the 1959 masterpiece?
Ben-Hur review by Matthew Ceo, September 2016.
Ben-Hur review
How do you alienate an audience from wanting to see future historical dramas on the silver screen? By pointlessly remaking 50’s classics such as Ben-Hur (the film based on Lew Wallce’s 1880 novel).
What sounds like a bitter jab at cinematic revisionism is actually an accurate reflection on how unnecessary the newest in a slew of remakes is. Timur Bekmambetov‘s reiteration of the Wyler remake, or the ’25 original (or source novel) is an unintentional insult. From the outset, what we see is an amateurish effort of a film, one that takes an original tale and bleeds it dry. I’d say that what’s most upsetting about Bekmambetov’s Ben-Hur is that it disappoints in almost every aspect of it’s production – making it seem like an incredibly well-funded direct-to-video title. However upsetting it may be though, it’s not worth crying over a remake that was never really wanted – as proven by its commercial and critical failure.
Ben-Hur‘s saving grace, if you can call it that, is that it’s cinematographic value rises to the occasion. A dozen-minute long sequence shows the titular character (Jack Huston) enslaved in a galley. It’s a welcome dose of tension, and you see a justifiable bout of character development which sees Judah take up a leadership role in preparation for whatever crumbs of a plot remain. A plot – I might add – that for the first quarter, incorrectly infers Messala (Toby Kebbell) to be the main protagonist.
What follows is a series of extraordinarily dull events. We quickly meet a predator (no, no, it’s actually just Morgan Freeman with dreads – who is actually a wealthy Nubian sheik), and before long, the several instances of the use of ‘oh my god’ as an actual line – which, if you consider that Jesus of Nazareth (Rodrigo Santoro) himself makes an appearance, is extremely out of touch with the tone and relevance of the film’s chronology and context. It is but one of many historical inaccuracies and anachronisms that undermine the film’s verisimilitude and as such, pulls the audience from its believability.
Ultimately, what we see on the screen feels like an unjust, empty husk, a poor imitation of the original tale. It’s been picked clean of its mystery and charm and instead stuffed with preachy religious and political limpness. It clearly attempts to emulate some of the modern period classics – Gladiator and Passion of the Christ among them. Whilst their reminiscence may lie in the use of similar locations for filming, Bekmambetov’s Ben-Hur, is – quite simply put – a simulacrum of the epic dramas that have, perhaps unknowingly, been influenced by the original Ben-Hur. It’s bitterly ironic then, that the film fails to deliver on so many levels, and perhaps its failure will serve as a lesson to studios.
Ben Hur (2016) is released in UK cinemas on Wednesday the 7th September 2016.
