NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Entertainment

Movie review: Ben-Hur

TimeOut
25 Aug, 2016 09:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

BEN-HUR is the epic story of Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston), a prince falsely accused of treason by his adopted brother Messala (Toby Kebbell), an officer in the Roman army. Also starring Morgan Freeman and Rodrigo Santoro.

There have been three previous Ben-Hur movies, as well as an animated version, a mini-series and a famous homage - Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - that ripped off its chariot race.

So a recommendation: Go find one of those. Because any way you look at it - even the hope of being so bad, it's good - the new Ben-Hur is an epic fail.

This one may claim to have gone back to the original 1880 Lew Wallace novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ as well as spending vast amounts on CGI for the action scenes.

But the results look cheap, the casting is off, the acting is bad, the script is historically and logically inept, the delivery is mostly television-like and pedestrian and the sermon it preaches makes this a faith-based movie aimed squarely at the dimmer kids in the Sunday School class.

Pilou Asbaek as Pontius Pilate in Ben-Hur.
Pilou Asbaek as Pontius Pilate in Ben-Hur.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Yes, it does have that chariot race. It even starts with a flash-forward of it to tease potential action excitement later. But the 10 minutes of actual racing are tame and uninvolving compared to the 1959 wide-screen version.

The better action comes earlier, during a naval battle where galley slave Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) is rowing for his life on team Rome.

That sea skirmish feels like it comes from a much better movie, something in the Gladiator league.

But it's a rare excitement in a movie that never really had a hope of topping the spectacle of the Oscar-sweeping 1959 Ben-Hur starring Charlton Heston as a Jewish nobleman seeking revenge for his enslavement by occupying Romans, led by his childhood friend Messala.

The strange incoherent result is mirrored in the creative team behind it. Russian director Bekmambetov is a box office hero at home but a Hollywood hack abroad with his most recent Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter following his epic Russian vampire movies Night Watch and Day Watch. Not sure if his past experience with wooden crosses qualified him for this religious tale, but he seems a strange choice.

Writer John Ridley won an Oscar for his adaptation of the high-minded 12 Years a Slave. Producer Mark Burnett is the guy behind television's Survivor and more tellingly, proselytising productions like History Channel mini-series The Bible and the movie Son of God.

Discover more

Entertainment

Last summer's music festival season sucked - what about this year?

25 Aug 04:30 AM
Entertainment

Get your mech suit ready: Titanfall 2 looks the business

25 Aug 03:40 AM
Opinion

Are these really the best films of all time?

25 Aug 07:40 PM
Entertainment

World's highest paid actor might surprise you

25 Aug 08:20 PM

So it's no wonder Jesus gets more to do in this than he did in the wings of the 1959 film.

He turns up quite often, sometimes doing a spot of woodwork to remind us he's a carpenter, to offer gnomic utterances about love, forgiveness and God's plans.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Rodrigo Santoro portraying Jesus in a scene from Ben-Hur.
Rodrigo Santoro portraying Jesus in a scene from Ben-Hur.

And even though he's the narrator, Morgan Freeman has been demoted from his usual role of God to a dreadlocked sheik who gives the freed Ben-Hur a chance to race for his chariot team.

But that's it for star-power. Jack Huston, who impressed as the masked hitman in Boardwalk Empire is a very lightweight presence as Judah Ben-Hur.

That Huston is no Heston makes this a movie with an empty centre where a heroic figure should be.

In this version, he's banished into slavery after a zealot takes a shot at Pontius Pilate from the Ben-Hur mansion. Judah takes the blame to save his family.

He survives the sea battle (in a scene with its own heavyweight crucifixion imagery) then wanders home to Jerusalem, rather than being given his freedom and hailed a hero in Rome, as he was in 1959.

That may cut a couple of hours out of the remake. But it's hardly character-building.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

As his Roman rival, Messala, Toby Kebbell isn't much better. He's burdened with most of the clunky dialogue and has to say imperious Roman things in a voice that sounds more football hooligan.

Toby Kebbell plays Messala in Ben-Hur.
Toby Kebbell plays Messala in Ben-Hur.

In in an unfathomable change from the book and previous movie, Massala has grown up as Ben-Hur's adopted brother, but has been allowed to keep his Roman beliefs and loyalties, which he takes into military service for the empire, returning back to Jerusalem an officer.

Possibly, the fraternal relationship is to avoid the homoerotic connotations of the two characters' animosity the 1959 film hinted at.

Making them brothers makes the early scenes feel more like a Holy Land soap opera more than a reinvented sword and sandals epic. Its shaky start is a sign that in this Ben-Hur the wheels are going to fall off long before those chariots get out of the gates.

Cast: Jack Huston, Toby Kebbell Morgan Freeman
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Running time: 123 mins
Rating: M (violence)
Verdict: Further proof they really shouldn't try making 'em liked they used to.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Entertainment

Entertainment

'I'm back baby': Lewis Capaldi returns to NZ for two special shows

06 Jul 10:00 PM
Reviews

William Dart review: Auckland Philharmonia's La Traviata impresses full house

06 Jul 05:00 PM
World

Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

06 Jul 02:09 AM

Sponsored: Get your kids involved in your reno

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Entertainment

'I'm back baby': Lewis Capaldi returns to NZ for two special shows

'I'm back baby': Lewis Capaldi returns to NZ for two special shows

06 Jul 10:00 PM

The Someone You Loved singer took a two-year hiatus to focus on his health.

William Dart review: Auckland Philharmonia's La Traviata impresses full house

William Dart review: Auckland Philharmonia's La Traviata impresses full house

06 Jul 05:00 PM
Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

Ozzy Osbourne's final Black Sabbath gig draws thousands in Birmingham

06 Jul 02:09 AM
NZ actress accuses Australian policeman of using CCTV to spy on her

NZ actress accuses Australian policeman of using CCTV to spy on her

06 Jul 12:48 AM
Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP