Must be judged in the context of its time and subject

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2008)

A truly epic film. As is well known, an awful lot of effort and money were spent in making it. Charlton Heston was, well, Charlton Heston. If his acting seems wooden to modern audiences, well, I'm sure that he was giving the director exactly what he asked for. As a previous commentator has mentioned, people in ancient times, at least the aristocrats, spoke, wrote, and behaved much more formally and floridly than people do now. Kudos to the Israeli actress who portrayed Esther. Such raven-haired beauty. There was a great deal of historical inaccuracy, but audiences were not such sticklers for realism in those days. And, oh my God, that chariot race scene! Amazing for its time. It stands up to any modern action scene.
I was surprised to realize that I had never actually seen this film until now. I expect that I had seen parts on TV as a child, but never sat through the whole thing. It does drag at times, and the treatment of the religious material is reasonably subject to debate, but it is definitely worth taking the time.