Tell me, did they pry the rights to this remake from Charlton Heston’s cold, dead hands? I could see that. What I cannot see is a good reason to remake Ben-Hur. Are you getting in on the current Christfilm trend? Maybe you thought, “gee, that chariot race could have been better.” Or maybe you just wanted to see if you could turn a diamond into a fugazi. What’s next? Casablanca? The Godfather? Whatever the reason, here’s 2016 Ben-Hur – unremarkable, unnecessary, unrepentant, but, to be fair, falls shy of raping the original and leaving it for dead.
Ben-Hur is story of two brothers – one Jewish prince, Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) and an adopted Roman, Messala (Tony Kebbell). Although both men are contemporaries of Jesus (Rodrigo Santoro) in both time and place, the entire film revolves around the Chariot Race climax (as teased in the opening moments). Sure, ignore Christ, what did he ever do? Neither of these dudes can mount horses without disaster happening anyway. Wait a sec. What is Judah Ben-Hur a prince of, exactly? That was never clear. And Jesus is King of the Jews, right, so … are they related? When you invite cousin Jesus for dinner, does he supply the wine or just make it on the spot?
Back to the actual story … if you didn’t know the two brothers would be rivals, the chariot teaser already put you there. Bible settings sure don’t lack for sibling rivalry, huh? Among Cain/Abel, Moses/Rameses and these two, there’s simply no love lost between brothers. Thank goodness Jesus was an only child, huh? Otherwise, the new testament preaching of “love your brother” might be “love your metaphorical brother; your literal brother can suck it.”
Anyway, restless for not being royalty, Messala falls in with the wrong crowd: Roman soldiers. I suppose there’s one in every family. Being monied, Judah has the luxury of being a-political; hence ignores the Judean Lives Matter movement brought to his front door, even while mending a member. The fortunate soul repays the kindness by violating the Hur’s stringent “no guest assassination attempts” policy, and –wouldn’t you know it?- JBH is a Roman slave before you can say, “Colossevm.”
Roman punishment is an animal unto itself. Ben-Hur describes the Romans, essentially, as soul-less order-minded brutes. Anything shy of complete fealty is met with wrathful 
-yet arbitrary- retribution. It’s like there’s a giant punishment wheel that gets spun whenever an infraction occurs – “c’mon, ‘mass crucifixion’ … c’mon ‘mass crucifixion.’ ‘ENSLAVEMENT?!’ Rats.”
Judah Ben-Hur’s meander to the acceptable side of character development is guided by sporadic Jesus cameos. It’s not so much window dressing as Jesus Dressing. This is all foreplay to get to the big horse-driven showdown. Chariot races are, of course, the Rollerball of the ancient world. Who knows how much talent these things actually require and why anybody would participate in said event twice defines sanity. Falling on a live grenade is likelier to yield a positive result than participation in a chariot race. And yet, Ben-Hur turned this into some sort of Rocky tribute (well, gee, we started butchering one classic and figured, “hey, why not two?”) Yes, meet Judah Ben-Hur, this gritty upstart prince from the mean street of Jerusalem is a primed underdog waiting to face his cowardly step-brother, Messala. Ben-Hur does indeed call Messala “coward,” but falls shy of naming him “Chicken Messala.” That’s a different part of the continent, I suppose.
Morgan Freeman gets the Burgess Meredith role. I swear he comes thisclose to saying, “stay down, Ben-Hur, stay down,” while the soundtrack blares “Gonna Fly Now.” Suffice to say, every.single.thing was better in the original Ben-Hur. Now, does that make the original a better movie? Yes. Yes it does. A lot better.
This iffy remake begs the question:
Why couldn’t this sleeping canine rest on?
One silver lining
Exercise confining
The interred gymnastics of Charlton Heston
Rated PG-13, 124 Minutes
D: Timur Bekmambetov
W: Keith R. Clarke & John Ridley
Genre: “I haveth to see a man about a horse”
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The People’s Front of Judea
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Charlton Heston
