Prepare for religion

Rating: 8/10 (21 June 2012)

IMDb Top 250: 158
Here's a fact: Ben-Hur won 11 Oscars, the most in history, and you'll keep thinking about that throughout the film. Here's a slightly opinionated fact: you may not like this as much as Spartacus, or Lawrence of Arabia, or even Gladiator if you've seen them first. That just how films age. And here's a slightly factual opinion: your religious views will affect your liking of the film. As such, this review is subjective in places.
The synopsis claims this film is about Prince Judah Ben-Hur and how he is betrayed by a friend and comes back for revenge. That's not true. That's the plot of Gladiator. Ben-Hur begins the same way, and revenge is sought out... then the film goes on for another hour. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a little deceptive. I wasn't prepared for the complete family subplot, and being of a younger generation, I had no idea how prevalent Jesus and the beginnings of Christianity would be.
I guess I'll get right to that. The scenes with Jesus are one of the two best scene types in the film. Seeing him give a pained Ben-Hur water is really something, but his final scene, won't spoil it here but you probably know how it ends, is elevating. I thought it was cool that they were showing Jesus to be realistic, simply a man teaching faith and how to live a better life... until the miracles came into play. It was too positive, considering the gut wrenching previous sequence.
The other great scenes were the action scenes. The naval battle was remarkable, but most iconic is the chariot race that has held up remarkably. Its sheer scope and intensity is breathtaking, but its the cinematography that keeps the very long scene still relevant to today.
Ben-Hur is a well-deserving recipient of its technical Oscars. The sets are grand and filled with period props, the costumes are innumerable and lavish, extras number in the thousands, the sound is remarkable and the music is bombastic. Despite running too long, Ben-Hur gives something good to look at for three and a half hours.
The acting is tough to assess, because its of a different generation. Quick head turns to dramatic music happen frequently, as well as awkward less-than-5-second kisses. But Charlton Heston is great as the wrong Judah Ben-Hur, and nihilistic Quintius Aerius and the gambling horse racer are great characters as well. Messala certainly rises to meet Ben- Hur as the villain though. He's just a bad guy and right until the end he radiates lost love.
Now I can't quite understand the moral of the story, so skip this paragraph over if you somehow haven't seen this film. Judah gets his revenge, and while 1) it's not intentional and 2) he doesn't enjoy it, he doesn't get the closure we thought he would get from it. Then he, because of timing, decides to follow Christianity, but only after his revenge was complete. Also, this is a quote from the synopsis on Wikipedia: "Miriam and Tirzah are miraculously healed." That's just bad plot for the sake of a happy ending. I don't really know what's accomplished by the end: I feel like without the miracle the ending would've had a most believable pro- Christian message by being fairly objective from non-believer Judah's view.
Ben-Hur is a landmark in film that hasn't aged as well as some other similar films. Visually it remains spellbinding, but with a long runtime, muddled plot and uncertain message, it just can't hold up in today's less religious society. 7.7/10