Interesteg
What makes it different from others?
Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Gurlyndrobb
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Calum Hutton
It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
John Lind
Was this yet another ratings sweep remake of a highly acclaimed film to con TV viewers into watching it at least once? Suffers from all the movie killer flaws that very nearly all "Made for TV" movies have, including cheap production values, mediocre acting, poor audio and visual special effects, mediocre script and dialog, bloat to fill alloted time slot(s), and erratic pacing for commercial break and episode split timing. Save your money, do NOT buy this! Save your time, don't watch it if they rerun it on TV. Wishing I hadn't wasted my time watching the first part. See the 1959 spectacular instead. It's INFINITELY better.
northstarfalling
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is within the top 20 to top 10 best selling books of all time. I was very disappointed that the makers of this series did not have enough respect for a book of that magnitude to even attempt to be accurate. I could rant for a long time about inaccurate this series was, but I will just keep it to some basic info to help prevent people from being disappointed like I was.I will first say that if you do not care about the actual story of Ben-Hur, that the production was pretty good, and you might enjoy this series. If I could block everything from my memory of the book, than I probably would have enjoyed this also.I think the screenwriter skipped reading the book in high school and just read the Cliff Notes instead, and then wrote the script for this about 40 years later off of whatever they still remembered. That might explain the level of inaccuracy. That is all the ranting I will do. For those that read the book this is literally all they got right: a guy named Ben-Hur gets betrayed by his friend, and becomes a slave then saves a roman officer who adopts him, and then Ben-Hur vows revenge and that cumulates into a chariot race. Everything else is totally botched. Also, aside from storyline, none of actors from the Hur family look anything like a Jew, and only one actor (Kristin Kreuk--Tirzah) even attempts an accent.This gets one star because as I said, the production was good, but the acting could have been a lot better, and you just cannot botch a book like Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ that badly and expect anything more.
Skynet-TX
The first and the biggest mistake of this movie that at some scenes the makers thought that Ben-Hur was Spartacus. He was not. Spartacus is a different movie and has nothing to do with the Ben-Hur story. 1. The scene from Spartacus (when the Thracian tries to kill the Caesar instead of Judah) should not be shown here. 2. Judah was not a Gladiator. He was a racing driver. 3. Quintus Arrius haven't died before Judah went back to Israel since in the original movie he sent his ring back to him. 4. We don't care about the childhood of Judah and Messala. We know that they were the best friends and that's it. 5. On the galley Judah was not number 40 but number 41. 6. He did not tell his name to Quintus after three days of saving him, but Quintus asked his name right after. 7. We don't know the name of Quintus' son. We only know that he had a son. 8. Galley-slaves did not tell anything to their prisoners about shipping. 9. It's not Judah who caught sight of the other ship at the battle but someone behind him. 10. First he was chained to the ship and Quintus asked to prisoner to take the chains of before the battle.There are many more mistakes in the movie but I think this many is more than enough to make your own decision about it. My suggestion: avoid!
Leofwine_draca
Say BEN HUR and people immediately think of the Charlton Heston Hollywood epic: a film full of elaborate sets, huge crowds and epic chariot races. The powers that be decided time was ripe for a new version of the story, albeit in miniseries form, and no doubt to take advantage of the new-found popularity of the historical miniseries after the success of HBO'S ROME.I for one am a huge fan of such stuff, so I was immediately predisposed to enjoy this outing. I was engaged from the outset: to my shame, I haven't yet seen the Heston film, so watching the story play out was a fresh and involving experience. The total running time is around three hours, and I didn't find that a single moment dragged.As with many of these productions, the cast is packed with familiar faces. Ben Cross, Alex Kingston, Marc Warren, Art Malik and in particular Ray Winstone all seem to be having a ball with the roles they're provided. Stephen Campbell Moore, as the youthful hero, is sufficiently just, upstanding and likable enough, and watch out for a trio of highly attractive female cast members who ease the viewing experience: Emily Van Camp, Kristin Kreuk and, particularly, Lucia Jimenez.The budget is high enough for them to film in authentic, sun-drenched locales, with copious use of sets and extras to build a realistic portrait of the times. The use of CGI (such as in the naval battle sequence) is certainly adequate and the final chariot race doesn't disappoint. It's no ROME, but then, what is?
