CHARIOTS OF IRE
Not-so-special effects, forgettable dialogue and a stiff lead doom remake
THE first two major big-screen versions of “Ben-Hur” were huge hits, with the second one, from 1959, winning 11 Oscars, including Best Picture. The third time’s definitely not the charm with the latest adaptation of Gen. Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel, which lands on screens pretty much dead on arrival.
Succeeding 1959 director William Wyler (“The Best Years of Our Lives”) is Timur Bekmambetov (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”), whose lethargic helming is just the beginning of the problems for a film that fails to deliver pretty much all the way down the line. This version’s 124 minutes feel much longer than Wyler’s 212.
There’s a fatally miscast lead (Jack Huston, you are no Charlton Heston), cut-rate special effects, reams of eyeball-glazing dialogue, and a schmaltzy “inspirational” script that pointlessly alters the story in ways that make absolutely no sense.
Huston should have taken inspiration from his grandfather John, the famous direc- tor who successfully begged to be excused from another biblical epic, “Quo Vadis.” (It was lampooned, along with “Ben-Hur,” in the Coen brothers’ “Hail, Caesar!” earlier this year.)
The younger Huston’s utter lack of the requisite charisma and machismo as a fictional Jewish prince make it difficult to care about Judah Ben-Hur’s conflicts with his adoptive Roman brother Messala (Toby Kebbell, who tries to be Joaquin Phoenix in “Gladiator” but ends up more like Joseph Fiennes in “Risen”).
In this telling, Ben-Hur runs afoul of his sibling — who has joined the Roman army because his grandfather assassinated Julius Caesar — when he aides a Jewish zealot who tries to assassinate Pontius Pilate (Pilou Asbaek). In the earlier version, it’s sparked by an accident involving roof tiles. Our hero is sentenced to years as a galley slave, but in yet another major departure from Wallace’s and other versions, he does not save the Roman commander and win his freedom.
Instead, Ben-Hur escapes in a shipwreck and is befriended by a wily African chariot-racing gambler named Deus ex Machina, er, Ilderim (Morgan Freeman, dispensing gravitas, aphorisms and yards of narration). Ilderim is so impressed by Ben-Hur’s horse-whispering skills that he bribes his new protégé’s way into the Roman circus.
You’d think this version might at least give the duly famous 1959 chariot race a run for its money — but apparently the reported $100 million budget wasn’t big enough to pay for the kind of wide shots that still thrill audiences 57 years later. Obvious TV-caliber effects and choppy editing certainly don’t help.
Also working against the new “Ben-Hur” is the decision to give additional scenes 8to Jesus Christ (Rodrigo Santoro, who makes Huston’s Ben-Hur look like a wimp). Seen only from the rear in earlier versions, this chatty Jesus ends up with a larger role than Ben-Hur’s love, Esther (Nazanin Boniadi), who doesn’t have much to do until the truly ridiculous finale.