Ben-Hur (1959)

IMDb plot summary: When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.
Directed by William Wyler. Starring Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet, and Jack Hawkins.

Biblical epics are tough for me to sit through (ESPECIALLY when they're over 3.5 hours long) but there were parts of this I liked a lot. The score was spectacular. Seriously, I'm pretty sure about half of my enjoyment came from the mood set by the music. Incidentally, I think 3+ hour movies should include an overture and an entr'acte today too.

The other thing that really captured my attention was the visual grandioseness. There's something very beautiful about older movies that have these enormous elaborate sets and huge amounts of extras, and knowing that none of it is CGI. It really inspires a sense of awe.

With those two technical elements aside, however, we come to the story, and here's where everything kind of falls apart. The first half is interesting, but as it goes on, it descends further and further into silly melodrama. Oh, and let's talk about the ending. (Spoilers ahead.) It's all suddenly, "Yay Jesus!" without really any coherent connection to the rest of the story. Judah's lust for revenge is abruptly over, explained away with a single line. His family is healed for no reason. I could understand if it was connected to, say, Jesus' resurrection (if you're going to tell a Jesus-is-God story, you might as well go all the way) and had a "life conquers death" theme overall, but, nope, apparently Jesus' death *itself* healed people and convinced others not to be angry anymore. It's a very strange mix of tragedy and happily ever after, and it doesn't work for me at all. (/Spoilers)

Overall: technically very lovely (this would be one I would watch on a big screen just to better appreciate the visuals and sound) but the story spirals downhill.

2.5 stars.

Flickchart: #1011 out of 2100, below White Nights and above Monsters University.