Review of Ben-Hur (2016) by Kiwijinxter — 27 Apr 2017

Ah, the snobbish professional critics know nothing. I ignore them, like I do most of the time. Otherwise I'd miss many of the best movies I've seen.

To be honest, after the crappy disasters of supposedly Christian movies meant to be directly based on the Bible that's Russell Crowe's weird "Noah" and Christian Bale's pathetic "Exodus: Gods and Kings", I almost gave up all hope of these un-Christian movies in Christian movie clothing, full of unashamed inauthenticity. So I decided to watch a movie that is NOT directly based on the Bible, Jack Huston's "Ben Hur", and it turned out to be more Christian than Noah or Exodus combined - all in a pretty epic movie!

Given this is based on the book and being the 2nd movie made with the same name, the plot is no surprise. At high level, it's a story of 2 brothers who went their separate ways due to a misunderstanding and betrayal, where hate drove them closer and closer to killing each other, but in the end found that forgiveness was more powerful than vengeance. Now that would make a boring story if it wasn't for strong acting and scripting, and of course, the epic action scenes (the ship / galley and horse racing scenes in particular) which were done with absolute purpose, woven into the very story itself. Where's the Christian part of it? Well, Ben-Hur lives in the same period as Jesus Christ and so we find Ben-Hur and his family occasionally experiencing Jesus' wisdom and love. Of course, Jesus' narrative is only the backdrop and he only makes a couple of appearances. (this is not a Jesus film - for that, try Passion of the Christ!). Jack Huston and Toby Kebbell held strong chemistry as brothers in the movie - going from close brotherhood to distant enemies and reconciled as brothers again. Jack Huston proves to be a versatile actor, exuding joviality, confidence, hatred, joy, tenderness - expressing the right emotions at the right times. Morgan Freeman plays Ilderim, a good supporting role in helping Ben-Hur face his brother in the final showdown.

This is one movie I would happily watch with the family. The values are wholesome, the action is epic, the movie is simply beautiful. Well worth the watch. One of the best movies I watched so far.