★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Timur Bekmabetov’s palid and plodding
retelling of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the
Christ stars Jack Huston and Toby Kebbell as former sort-of brothers Judah
Ben-Hur and Messala, a Jewish prince and Roman centurion whose friendship is
torn asunder when Judah is wrongly accused of treason against his brother’s
commanding officer. Sentenced to a life of slavery, Judah begins an odyssey of
vengeance from the galley of a Roman warship to the chariot arena of Jerusalem.
As with any remake of a classic, there’s a
latchkey point of comparison to which the new entry cannot possibly live up to.
In this case, it’s William Wyler's Charlton Heston-led masterpiece from 1959,
an incredibly expansive and influential film whose DNA can be seen in
everything from the Star Wars
prequels to Gladiator and even modern
superhero movies. But none of that ingenious influence is present here, only
the watered-down genes passed onto neutered offspring.
Nothing that made that most exceptional of
retellings so awesome to behold is enough to captivate a modern audience:
what’s a protagonist's 5-year stint away from his family when Gladiator had them strung up and set
ablaze before his very eyes? What’s a sand-flecked chariot race when the
technical astonishment of The Phantom
Menace’s podrace sequence still electrifies? The story of Ben-Hur used to be an event, but this mostly beat-for-beat
repetition merely falls in line beside contemporary ill-fated swords and sandals
resuscitations such as Clash of the
Titans, or Pompeii.
I say mostly
beat-for-beat, because writers Keith R. Clarke and John Ridley do occasionally deviate
from previous versions of the story. Rather than complete enslavement to the original
tale, they’ve opted for an approach more akin to an exam question: “In your own
words, describe the plight of Judah Ben-Hur (12 marks, show your working)”. Messala’s
campaign in Germania is explored in a series of gritty flashbacks, Simonides is
cut down without a word, and Judah leaves Arrius to drown during the sea battle.
A grave error is made in placing the chariot race as the climax and focal point
of the film (we begin with the stable gates opening before flashing backwards),
and a final, gob-smackingly misguided alteration transforms the very nature of
the story from one of vengeance to something completely inert; the end credits music
drowned out by a chorus of exasperated sighs and irritated tuts from the
audience.
It’s fair to say that Huston and Kebbell –
though undeniably talented – are no match for Heston and Stephen Boyd. The
homoerotic subtext written into Wyler’s version (much to the later disdain of
Heston) is very much subdued here, and Messala’s decision to leave his would-be
brother behind to serve the needs of his Emperor feels forced and sudden. As
demonstrated by his star turns in Dawn of
the Planet of the Apes and Warcraft,
Kebbell works best in showy performances, but here he’s uncomfortably
restrained and often looks plain bored. Huston
wears his vengeful grumble on his sleeve, though most of the real acting is
left to his various tangled wigs. Although, compared to Morgan Freeman as Sheik
Ilderim (whose hairdo resembles the alien dreadlocks of the monster in Predator), his turn is positively
stellar.
It's also honest to admit that Ben-Hur is not a low-key tale of small movements: whether it's being relayed through Heston's gritted teeth or live horses charging across the stage in an early theatre interpretation, it has always worked on an operatic scale. There are, however, fine-drawn details amongst the monumental, but given that this is the tail end of summer blockbuster season, any trace of subtlety must be cast aside. As such, Christ’s lesser but integral role (in the past depicted with humbling silhouettes and off-camera gestures) is inflated to include Rodrigo Santoro's hunky carpenter quoting word-perfect bible passages with a little pseudo-Yoda observations thrown in for good measure (anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering etc).
Those guilty of expressing sheer fury at the very idea of this film, perhaps from an idle glimpse of the poster (yours truly included), will be disappointed at the lack of anything to merit such utter disdain than by anything offered by the final product. The lead performances are earnest enough and the special effects are surprisingly CGI-light for a film headed by the director of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, but the visuals are still listless, the score is boring and (despite a running time that barely scrapes two thirds of the ’59 version) it feels far too long. Sitting through to the very end is more chore than challenge.
