Ben-Hur (1959)
Charlton Heston stars in this semi-biblical epic about revenge, forgiveness and faith. Most people have probably heard of Ben-Hur as it smashed box office records in it's day and is a serious film making achievement but does it stand the test of time?
There are two major set pieces in the film, the sea battle and the chariot race. Sadly the sea battle is a bit of a let down, compared to modern effects it does look rather poor and you can see the limitations the film makers were working under. On the other hand the chariot race is still amazing and I would suggest much better than what would be achieved by a modern director who goes straight for CGI solutions. The set/location is huge and gives a real sense of scale.
Three and a half hours is a lot of time to ask from an audience and the run time of Ben-Hur is a real stumbling block. The story takes a while to get going and skips some of the interesting parts such as showing us how Ben-Hur reacts to his early days as a slave (we jump on three years) and also misses out his entire career as a charioteer in Rome. A 6 hour mini series might be a better way to tell this story, break it up into bite size chunks.
As a film this is a 4/5 out of but I really would not recommend it unless you are a big fan of classic epics of the 50s and 60s.
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