Epic and pretty movie, but inferior to many of its contemporary classics

Rating: 6/10 (12 March 2013)

This is one of what I call the "untouchable" movies and, along with other pieces, this is very hard to rate and review, so I usually avoid that (specially because of the usual aggression that comes from people who think high of those movies). In this case there is one particular aggravation: the quantity of Academy Awards this movie got. As we all know, this is, for many people, a measure of how good a movie is or isn't. Not seeing how much the Academy Awards is biased is, at least for me, a matter of choice (and also a lack of any sense). Being biased or not in this case, and as much as I don't want to, I feel like I should say something about this movie, so here it goes.
This movie is as shallow as the ideals of those it tries to please, filled with the standard hypocrisy and bigotry you'll find in most of their minds. It's so pretensions and the acting is so hideous and corny that it's hard to believe that all of the hype around it can still exist, as you think that as time passes people would be more intelligent and critical, and would reject an abomination like this. Charlton Heston is nothing special, but he is particularly bad in this movie. This is a movie that was made to be BIG, and this is where everything revolves for it. It's an epic movie, with an epic number of extras, an epic spending on costumes and setting and equipment and an epic (debatable) soundtrack, which was specifically designed to snatch Oscars. However, from the story to the character development, this is incredibly inferior to many other epics of that time that are much more historically accurate than Ben-Hur and much better executed, with better acting and with more solid plots.
The film considers itself to be not only an epic "historical" account, but also thinks it has a deeper meaning. It relies heavily on an appeal to some values, while it tries to develop in the background a story of love, friendship and revenge. It fails miserably in all of those aspects.
It fails to convey a meaningful message because its values are devoid of any deepness and usually end up in contradictions. Thus, all of the actions that happen in the movie that are supposed to be linked with these values become meaningless: the conflict of the urge for revenge, etc. The childish notions of love and goodness that it conveys end up spoiling the movie, because this was clearly made for (and to impress.. and sorry for the bluntness).... Christians. It ends up being like a big Sunday school, with artsy cameos by JC himself (in the distance, or off screen, and never showing his face because, you know, it's more artsy that way, and it's also deep, like the "message" of this movie). Some religiosity in movies won't bother you that much, but this one just overdo it, and shows that this was clearly devised for Christian audiences.
However, it also fails in the underlining story of Ben-Hur. His love and friendship relationships do not convince, maybe because of Academy Award winner Charlton Heston's (his performance in SOYLENT GREEN is better than this one, seriously) performance, but probably because of the poor development of the characters, which the movie clearly sacrifices to try and push its values to the audience.
The costumes, the editing, everything is incredible (except the acting and the plot), and also the infamous chariot race is very well executed, so even if this movie is very slow paced it's still watchable. However, it's dull, with an acting that is hard on the eyes, and very pretentious for a movie with values so shallow and devoid of meaning.
Rating: 6,5/10 (I round ratings down)