Review of The Ten Commandments (1956) by Jeffrey C — 02 Oct 2010

The epic film The Ten Commandments is directed by the legendary Cecil B. DeMille and stars Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, and Anne Baxter. The film takes place 3,000 years ago in Egypt.

The film starts with the pharaoh discovering that an evil star is shining brightly which means that the Hebrew who will save the slaves has been born, so the Pharaoh decrees that every newborn must be killed. A woman named Yochabel sends her newborn son down a river in a basket so that her son will not be killed. The son is then found by the Pharaoh's sister who raises the boy, Moses, as her own son. Many years later Moses is a very successful Prince of Egypt and may even possibly become the next Pharaoh unless his cousin Rameses proves to be the better candidate. A short while later Moses discovers that he is actually a Hebrew and decides to join his people and leave the life of royalty. When the Pharaoh discovers this he outcasts his nephew and that is when the epic tale continues with Moses' meeting with God.

The direction of this film was brilliant, DeMille did a great job of making this epic film feel epic. There were many beautiful shots of all the slaves doing construction and especially at the end with the parting of the Red Sea, extremely well done. Whenever God was on the screen the shots for Him were truly Godly and all the special effects for this film were truly magnificent.

The acting in this film was only so-so, Charlton Heston gave a very good performance as Moses but Yul Brynner and Anne Baxter were not that great in their parts of Rameses and Nefretiri. For Brynner the whole film he acted the same, angry and cocky. There truly was no emotional change for him until slightly at the very end, but throughout the film his anger should of grown instead of staying consistent. Baxter the whole film was just in love with Moses and didn't ever portray a quality that showed why he was also attracted to her and then at the end I will not give a spoiler away but something bad happens to her and she never shows any sadness, she is just cold.

A great part of the film was the score, it really worked well with the film and if one was just hearing it they would know it was for an epic film. It was perfect in all the right places and without it the film would be nowhere near the quality that it currently is.

The art direction and costume design for this film was also truly perfect. It is exactly how I imagine Egypt to look in that time period and it was brilliantly done and should be a model for all other films of what great art direction and costume design should be.

Overall this film is a solid 8/10, the only thing bringing it down is some of the performances. I would recommend this film to just about everyone, especially fans of the epic genre, and religious and historical films.