"Ben-Hur" (1959)

Rank on the AFI List: #100

WHAT I ALREADY KNEW ABOUT THE MOVIE:
1) It stars Charlton Heston.
2) It has a famous chariot race scene.
3) It's some sort of Biblical epic.

LET ME EXPLAIN...
Finally getting around to watch this famous epic brought about a few surprises - good and bad - to me...

First, the good surprise: I didn't know it was a story told with the life of Jesus Christ as an intertwining side story.  As a Christian, I thought this brought a neat perspective of how "regular folks" around Jerusalem and Nazareth may have experienced and talked about Jesus during that time.

Next, the bad surprise: I didn't think I could spend 4 hours watching a movie and end up only knowing the characters superficially, but that's exactly what happened.  This is difficult to explain, but I'll try by using another 4-hour epic, Gone with the Wind, as an example.

In "Gone with the Wind", you really get to know the characters personally.  You learn their personalities, their passions, and their flaws.  You understand why they do what they do - even if it's irrational - because it fits who you know them to be.  You understand why Scarlett would vow, under God, to lie, cheat, and steal.  You can see why she antagonizes Rhett while depending on him to always be there.  And it makes perfect sense why Rhett ends up not giving a damn.

In "Ben-Hur", I never felt like the characters were exposed to the audience in the same way.  Yes, you learn how heroic Ben-Hur is, and that he loves his family, but that's about it (and really, how hard is it that?  Most people love their family, and if you put a characater in a situation where they can save people and do, you think of them as heroic.).  However, I never understood any of the characters past a generic "of course they would do that because that's what anyone would do" viewpoint.  What this film needed was a better script with more character vulnerability.

What makes this a "Top 100" Movie?
It's a massive epic: over 300 sets were built for the film, and it featured more crew and extras than any other film ever made before it (there were 15,000 extras for the chariot race sequence alone).  Considering the scale of the film, it was done very well.  The aforementioned chariot race sequence was VERY impressive and deserves to be mentioned as one of the greatest scenes in movie history (it took 2 months to shoot the sequence and cost $1 million to produce).  It also won 11 Academy Awards, more than any other film before it (and not matched until "Titanic" in 1997), even though my wife and I really didn't think Charlton Heston's performance was worthy of the Best Actor award.

Complaints?
Along with the lack of character vulnerability I mentioned earlier, the beginning was slow with drawn-out scenes.  In fact, there were scenes throughout the film that seemed longer than necessary.  This did not have to be a 4-hour movie.

LET ME SUM UP...
Slow parts, but good action scenes, especially the famous chariot race.  The script seemed a bit shallow and didn't allow the audience to really get to know the characters too much.  The story itself is a neat idea, from a Christian perspective, to look at the life of Christ through the eyes of people who weren't necessarily followers - nor enemies - of His.

MY RATING: 5.5/10

TOTAL # OF FILMS WATCHED: 77