I was so sure this was gonna be a great movie in the first part, but then religion crap came into the scene slowly in the last parts. I was disappointed.
So beautifully set and shot, so stupidly ended. 4/10
It's part of the story.
shareRight. The story, after all, is titled, "A Tale of the Christ". The OP's biased and silly claim that the story would be better without "the religious crap" is wholly unrealistic and contrary to the story's own stated intent.
shareI have to say though that the OP has a point. I don't believe that most viewers today will know of the "A tale of the Christ" sub-title, and only a few sit down to watch "Ben Hur" to see a religious story. They want to follow Judah and his family and how their lives are close to being destroyed by Messala's cold ambitions. Oh sure, the movie starts out with what clearly is the birth of Jesus. And you can find other religious scenes as well during the movie's run. But they still are few and far between, so many viewers will forget about them and focus on Judah getting his revenge on Messala instead. It is after all what mostly seems to be the main plot of the movie. And then all by a sudden, it is all about Jesus's crucificion and how he died for our sins etc etc. And yeah, I can very much see how that will come as a surprise to some. And I can even understand that most non-religious people will find such an ending boring and way too preachy.
I agree. For my part, I had no idea before I rented the movie that it was a religious movie. On Netflix, the title was just listed as "Ben-Hur". And I'd seen it mentioned by people as "Ben-Hur", without the subtitle. All I knew was that it was a historical epic set in the Roman period, and so I rented it as someone who loves both historical epics and Roman history. I had not the slightest inkling that it was a Christian movie until I saw it.
Even now, after having seen it twice, the main story still seems, to me, to be that of Judah and his conflict with Messala, in the setting of the struggle between Roman imperialism and the peoples it ruled over. The religion stuff feels, frankly, kind of out of place. It doesn't feel like it really belongs. It doesn't bother me really, but it just feels forced and I don't really think of it as part of the story, but rather just a separate thing that happens to be taking place in the same time and locale in which the story is. If all the religion were edited out of the movie, it wouldn't really affect it much in my opinion.
And I understand you perfectly. I don't really mind the religious parts either (even if the movie gets a bit too preachy in the end, during the crucificion scene). But yeah, I can see how they feel out of place to a modern more secular audience.
It seems like the point of the story is that Judah and Jesus live parallell lives. They are just about the same age, which is pointed out by Balthazar. And it happens that their paths cross a few times over the years. Jesus turned up to be the only one around, who had the courage to give Judah some water. Which made it possible for him to survive and return to his family and former life. And later on, Jesus is the one to cure Judah's mother and sister from their leprousy. So yeah…
It's based off a book. I think current western mindset against Christianity has colored their outlook on this film as well as films like Boys Town.
shareThe movie does, in some ways, feel like two movies playing out in one reel. Though as someone who is interested in Christianity and religion, I don't mind it.
What I think would improve the movie and fix the problem would be to intertwine the two by having Judah, through his contact with Jesus, come to the point of forgiving Messala.
He did forgive him.
shareThey could always make it “the story of an atheist”. In which he’s unfairly taken prisoner, gives up after a few days and dies. Making no meaningful impact on the world.
shareTake out the religious stuff and the film is... very, very gay! Really. Literally! The plot is about how Judah suffers because of a love-hate relationship with a handsome Roman, and claws his way back into respectability because he plays dominance/submission games with a handsome older man who "adopts" him. So after two hours of that, the religious stuff does, as previously noted, seem a bit out of place!
And yes, the homoeroticism was quite intentional, the film had a gay scriptwriter and at least one actor who played up the subtext (not Heston, nobody told him and he didn't catch on). Which makes me wonder about the original novel, which I've never read. Does it have homoerotic subtext, or is it all religion?
One scene in the novel has Messala compare Judah to Ganymedes, who according to Classic Mythology was one of the few male lovers of Zeus/Jupiter (the king of the gods, who normally used to prefer women and fooled around a lot with both goddesses and mortal ladies). Some people have seen this as a hint to that Messala had some sexual lust for Judah, but I don't think that Judah felt more than a strong friendship for Messala. After all, no Jewish man in that time period would have let himself be a homosexual. Neither would a 19th century writer of Christian novels allow his hero to be a homosexual, even if there could be some hints about the villain being one.
shareGTH
shareAnyone who agrees with you is a moron.
shareThank you for letting us all know what you are made of.
shareI agree with you. A very good movie, sometimes too religious but still a very good one.
shareNope its great for the religion parts too
shareIs it still cool to bash the catholic religion?