Still good but not aging well

Rating: 7/10 (27 May 2011)

Ben Hur must have been a spectacle for 1959 and the film is not aging well. The look, direction, and acting style all scream 1950's epic. The director's style of long scenes with few cut aways gets boring really quickly if you are more use to modern day style. The acting is overly dramatic with a score that while good plays up the emotion like a soap opera, and the special effects particularly the fleet shot using miniatures does not look good at all (it might look better on a big screen theater than my laptop) but Star Wars did a much better job with models. The chariot scene though is really good and this is most of the action of the film.
Grade B=