Classy Entertainment for Italian Grandmothers in Atlantic City

Rating: 5/10 (25 August 2006)

A lot of people complained when Russell Crowe's "Gladiator" won best picture. Not that Gladiator was bad, mind you, but rather that its simple storyline and characters seemed too, well, proletarian, for Oscar. "Oscar", those people would say, "used to be for innovative, good movies." The example of Ben Hur should prove to such people that Oscar has always had tendencies towards being the NASCAR championship of film awards. Again, it's not a bad movie. However, it relies almost entirely on three tricks to convince the Harrah's Atlantic City Bus-riding set that this is high art.
First, there was a giant budget to persuade that the film was somehow technically innovative. Throw enough money at anything and some innovation will occur, but Ben Hur was hardly groundbreaking in any significant way.
Second, you need to have plenty of throw-away lines of pseudo-philosophy. Ben Hur simply crawls with them.
Finally, to guarantee that the film would warrant being purchased in the Classy Velour-bound Boxed Set edition, it needs to have a religious element. Cameo by Jesus? Perfect! Who loves ya, baby? It's a fun film to watch because it's probably a part of the collective backgrounds of a lot of IMDb readers. And, truth be told, it is a better film than either Cleopatra or The Odyssey. However, it pales in comparison in virtually every way to Kubrick's Spartacus.