'Ben-Hur' Review: A Miscast Remake that 'Will Only Appeal to a Specific Audience'
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— -- Starring Jack Huston, Toby Kebbell and Morgan Freeman
Rated PG-13
One-and-a-half out of five stars
Let’s pretend for a few seconds that "Ben-Hur" isn’t a remake of one of the greatest movies ever made, the 1959 Charlton Heston epic of the same name. So, we have a terrific character actor, Jack Huston ("Boardwalk Empire"), playing the title role -- a Jewish prince in the Roman empire who’s betrayed by his adopted Roman soldier brother, Messala (Toby Kebbell), then enslaved for five years in the bowels of a warship. Ben-Hur wants to avenge his situation while hoping to find his own mother, sister and wife.
Almost immediately, it’s apparent this movie has a major, fatal flaw: Jack Huston. He’s grossly miscast here. I’m not saying he can’t carry a movie -- perhaps one where his character isn’t required to have brawn and gravitas -- but he’s never believable here. The casting director did him no favors by putting him side-by-side with Kebbell, whose physicality and presence is perfect not only for a Roman soldier, but also would’ve been perfect for Ben-Hur.
It only gets worse for Huston when he has to share scenes with Morgan Freeman, who plays a gambler and chariot owner named Ilderim. Freeman’s stentorian tones will make anybody sound tiny by comparison, but Huston seems to be overcompensating by impersonating Christian Bale’s Batman voice -- and it sounds ridiculous.
As noted, this is a remake of a movie that, at the time, was the most expensive of its kind. It also won 11 Academy Awards and included one of the most spectacular action sequences in cinematic history, in the form of that landmark chariot race.
This movie was remade, I guess, to hammer you over the head with the fact it’s supposed to be a Christian morality tale. I have no problem with that part, but I do have a problem with the hammering-over-the-head part. The message is imparted with the subtlety of a Kanye West tweet. Outside of the first action sequence and the chariot race, this "Ben-Hur" eschews great storytelling to push an agenda that will only appeal to a specific audience.