#100: Ben-Hur

Today I will be reviewing the 1959, William Wyler film Ben-Hur.  Now I have never seen the movie the whole way through (which is no surprise since this movie is nearly four hours long) but I have seen bits and pieces of the movie, most notably the famous chariot race.  But seriously four hours?  Do you know what else you can do in four hours?  Watch a ballgame, fly from Chicago to Los Angels, cook a turkey, or watch Ben-Hur.

Now this movie is a great epic movie.  All sorts of big events thrown together for a great story but this movie is famous for one thing... the chariot race.

This scene is exciting and for the time must have been extremely hard to shoot.  I am not an expert on the subject so I will just give my ignorant non-founded facts and say that this scene had to shape action scenes for years to come.  The fact that it is still refereed to and referenced shows how impactful this scene was.  Also while watching this scene it really made me wish NASCAR was this entertaining.  One top of this scene this film also won 11 Oscars for ...no way that is to many to list, I will just say it won 11 Academy awards and nominated for one more.

The wide world of world wide web has the following ratings:
IMDB = 8.2 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes (Critic Rating) = 89%
Rotten Tomatoes (Audience Rating) = 81%
Really high critic rating and a little lower on the audience meters but maybe 19% of people have better things to do then watch a four hour movie.

Now time for my extremely un-expert opinion on the movie.  The characters we overall I don't know... nonexistent.  Ben-Hur's sister and mom were in the movie... and I can not tell you one characteristic about them.  The same would go for the character of Ester, Arrian, and pretty much everone else in this movie.  All characters can be defined by are they a nice person or a mean eperson.  Only a few characters outside of Ben-Hur stood out to me.  First being Jesus (does this then count as a Christmas or Easter movie) because he is Jesus.  Next the Sheik who is just super entertaining.  I really wish there was more of him in this movie.  Lastly there was Messala who only really stands out due to his role in the story not due to great acting or being a stand out character.  Ben-Hur is a really enjoyable character and I found him really funny though I am not sure if I was supposed to.  The acting is fine I didn't feel that it was horrible but nothing special either.

Now that we are back from the intermission (get it because the movie is so frickin long?) lets look at the story.  The story is what makes this movie great.  As I mentioned before the characters are pretty flat but the plot is the main draw and focus of this story.  Ben-Hur goes through a lot on his journey and even though this movie starts with the birth of Christ (is this why all my mom's Christmas decorations have one black wise man?) and goes for years it never feels long while watching it.  There is always something going on.  Also, as always, I learned  thing or two from this film:
#1: The best way to prove yourself innocent is to kill someone
#2: Boats have four speeds: normal, battle, attack, and ramming
#3: Fire sticks are better than swords
#4: People don't want to hang out with leapers
#5: Leapers don''t want to have out with people

This movie is famous for its big chariot scene and I am not sure how much stunt and camera work had to go into that scene but I bet it was a lot.  That wasn't the only battle scene though:

Though this looks more like kids playing with fireworks and roman candles.  I am also curious why the blood is so red in this movie.  It is like ketchup.  Also for a movie with a lot of violence and blood I was surprised that it was rated G.  I guess back in the days their children weren't wusses (that right I'm looking at you six year olds).  Lastly this movie has decent music.  How do I know this you ask, well its because this film has a overture which lasts over six minutes at the begging of the film and another moment of music lasting for 4 minutes on the second disc of the DVD.  Boy oh boy its fun to watch a blank screen while music plays. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie, despite that my fiance continued to patronize me and explain everything that was happening in the movie.  The story is great and the action is fun.  Ben-Hur is a funny character who does awkward things at times and even though the movie is four hours it is never boring.  In conclusion I give this movie an A.