I started talking, and he was fervently writing notes.
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“Ben-Hur” was executive produced by outspoken Hollywood Christian couple Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, and although it’s not overtly Christian, the modern version of the motion picture is laced with the message of Christ.
All of this buildup is in service of the climactic chariot race, of course, and Bekmambetov stages the extended sequence with confidence and grit.
The day of the chariot race dawns and it is a spectacle without compare – even against the chariot race in William Wyler’s 1959 epic “Ben-Hur”, starring Charlton Heston. “I don’t know that we’ve ever seen that in a film before”, Downey explained.
What he forgets in doing so is that every epic has its boring bits, not by coincidence but by necessity and design – narrative valleys make the peaks that much higher. Remakes of insanely popular movies such as Carrie and Oldboy were nearly identical, carbon copies of the originals, simply with a different cast.
Timur Bekmambetov directs the latest remake, but don’t expect it to match its predecessor’s awards haul.
(Photo by MGM/Jason Kempin/Getty Images) Director Timur Bekmambetov, actor Jack Huston and guest attend the Ben Hur Faith Summit at Paramount Pictures on June 14, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. Audiences still long for epic movies.
That introduces Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston), the privileged son of a wealthy Jewish family in Jerusalem; and his adopted Roman brother Messala (Tony Kebbell, who, as bad-guy roles go, also played Dr. Doom in the forgettable “Fantastic Four” reboot).
Due to a variety of circumstances Judah is taken prisoner by the Romans and is consigned to slavery as an oarsman in a Roman ship. “I$3 t’s character-driven, it’s about relationships, it’s about loss, loss of family, loss of freedom, it’s.this extraordinary story of these brothers who have been raised lovingly together, they’re best friends, whose lives get ripped apart and suddenly they’re arch enemies, both intent on getting their revenge and if it means killing each other, that’s what they’ll do”. This new Ben-Hur is, as much as anything, a story about two brothers (slowly) learning how to love one another after jealousy and machismo get in the way. When Judah realizes that Messala will be racing in the chariot competition, he first proves his ability as a horseman to Ilderim, who then arranges to have Judah join the race.
And while Rodrigo Santoro makes for a quietly honest Jesus, Morgan Freeman’s helpful Sheik Ilderim feels like a Morgan Freeman impersonator, all deep-voiced narration and self-satisfied wisdom.
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“Finding the right actor to play Judah Ben-Hur was a process”, recalls Bekmambetov. (He’s a carpenter, get it?) And then there’s the assertion of Sheik Ilderim (Morgan Freeman), who musters all his grandiosity to tell Judah: “You can not fight them in the streets, but there is another way – the Circus”. It also pointed out the many ways in which, while restricted by the production codes in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s, filmmakers managed to sneak in gay content anyway. “The most important thing I took away from it is that it made me question a lot of things about the world and what I would do in certain situations”, Huston concluded. Instead, “Ben-Hur” highlights the difference between merely saddling up and stumbling to the finish line, versus actually winning the race.
