Whenever I talk to people who love movies a common topic of discussion can be to name a loved classic that I despise, now those who have been reading my reviews since I first joined Epinions may think that I would have named
2001 A Space Odyssey above all other films, but that's just not the case. I at least respect
2001 for it's technical achievements, even if I don't particularly like it, but there is a well respected film that I am perfectly comfortable tagging as
Overrated, a film so appallingly bad that the mere idea of it being respected baffles me. That film is the 1959 swords and sandals epic
Ben Hur.
Obviously the usual reply takes the form of a question, the question as to why such an overrated film would have won the most awards in history. My reply to them, and anyone asking themselves this very question, comes in the form of a hearty, big deal!!! It's joint at the top of that position with
Titanic of all things, and I doubt anyone other than my mother will even attempt to claim
Titanic is the greatest film of all time. The basic truth is that there's a big difference between a great film, and a film that the academy decides to give awards to.
For the uninformed,
Ben Hur is a film set during the height of the Roman Empire and tells the story of a rich Jewish Prince named Judah Ben-Hur, a man who is visited by an old friend named Messala, who is now a Commander in the armies of Rome. Unfortunately after an accident with a brick falling from Judah's house results in a near miss for Messala he instantly forgets old friendships and throws Judah too the galleys, before sending his mother and sister into a Roman prison. Of course, sitting in the Galleys stewing in his own juices, Judah becomes determined for his vengeance.
It's an excellent concept, and certainly not a concept that is doomed to failure as the results were so spectacular in Ridley Scott's seminal rip off
Gladiator. So why is it that
Ben Hur can't even muster up the quality for more than 1 star in my analysis? Well, since a lot of you are probably routing for my execution right now, allow me to present before the court some of the films awards.
Best Costume Design,
Best Effects, Special Effects and
Best Sound are not areas that I'm going to argue with, purely because I was not around in the 50's to comment on how impressive they were then. Still I'm not going to praise them either, I'm going to give them the best praise that I can but that still amounts to a case of, they have aged badly. In this day and age the effects used in the film are terribly rendered, certainly not even close to being good enough to avoid drawing you out of the film. Likewise on the costume design that was probably very believable in a time when films would cost a fraction of what they do now, but after witnessing the costumes in other historical epics,
Ben Hur's costumes look extremely cheap, very false, and so again put up a barrier from being completely absorbed into the experience. The sound though is kind of impressive, bold drum beats, thundering hooves and rattling chariots, it all sounds good and if it wasn't for the fact that it all sounds a little old and hollow would be spectacular.
However Stanley Kubrick's
Spartacus also has a lot of these age problems, yet that film still managed to be a classic, no a masterpiece, so why is it that
Ben Hur fails so spectacularly when it should be garnering all of the praise which it's getting, but will never get from me? Allow me to present to the jury another item of evidence, I call him Charlton Heston, better known as the winner of the
Best Actor in a Leading Role award for his performance as Judah Ben-Hur. Someone please tell me that 1959 was just a very slow year, and that the truth has nothing to do with substance abuse in the academy. Charlton Heston is not the greatest actor in history, he's not even technically a good actor. I like him as a star, very good in
Planet Of The Apes,
The Omega Man and even
earthquake, but there was a reason for those roles being good. They were all out and out action movies that required a chisel jawed hero to save the day, Heston has one heck of a chiseled jaw. He doesn't have something important to a role like
Ben Hur though, namely anything even resembling emotion. I may be in the minority here but I can not for the life of me understand why anyone would praise this role where gruff voiced Heston shouts at the screen, even when he's supposed to be being quiet he just keeps being Chisel Jawed Charlton Heston but with unconvincing attempts at tears.
OK so Stephen Boyd did extremely well playing beside him as the films villain, Messala, giving the films best performance and even something I could describe as layered. He does very well at getting across both Messala's evil deeds and the reasons for which he did them. It's just that he's the supporting actor, not the star, and so by the time you get to him you couldn't care less what he does because you don't care anything for his victim.
There are other awards to present to the jury, such as
The Best Picture which would certainly require more than one star, unless it was an extremely bad year with no films worth their salt, which I highly doubt. Same with
The Best Director award, which would force you to question whether a bad performance is the fault of the director or not, and since I've seen terrible actors give stellar performances with the right director than I would have to say that such a bad performance by the lead actor would negate the directors achievement as the best director.
The other awards it was nominated for were fine, the film did have good art design, it did have good cinematography and it featured a grand musical accompaniment. It's just that these areas should serve a purpose in nearly always helping the emotional attachment, but when a film has zero emotional attachment and the cinematography, soundtrack et el, don't cause a stir of emotion, then as good as they were they can't be counted on to give the film extra points.
All of that and I've forgotten to mention the absolutely shameless inclusion of Jesus in a few scenes. The film even subtitles itself
Ben Hur: A Story Of The Christ purely because you see the back of Jesus head in a few scenes randomly inserted for the sake of a tacky ending. Urgh!!!
Of course I can discuss all of the awards and other technical merits for as long as I have, but all most people are interested in is how I felt about the film, and this brings the main reason to award the film one star. It was incredibly boring. Trundling through it's slow story with barely a hint of excitement, and no emotional drama is not such a good thing. Even the infamous chariot race, while certainly holding a degree of interest, was drawn out for far too long, and with the dated graphics had nowhere near as much of the brutal believability that people claim. It's even more overrated than the copycat Pod race used in
The Phantom Menace, and when the best thing about a film is an overrated, badly aged scene at the end of a near 4 hour run time you end up thinking it was not so great after all.
Now those of you who haven't seen the film, don't!!! It's total junk not worth the effort required to switch the TV on. Those who have seen the film, please admire the pretty girl in the red dress and I'll just sneak out of this back door here.
This has been my controversial entry into the
Stinky Movie Writeoff.
