Timur Bekmabetov’s palid and plodding retelling of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ stars Jack Huston and Toby Kebbell as former sort-of brothers Judah Ben-Hur and Messala, a Jewish prince and Roman centurion whose friendship is torn asunder when Judah is wrongly accused of treason against his brother’s commanding officer. Sentenced to a life of slavery, Judah begins an odyssey of vengeance from the galley of a Roman warship to the chariot arena of Jerusalem.





As with any remake of a classic, there’s a latchkey point of comparison to which the new entry cannot possibly live up to. In this case, it’s William Wyler's Charlton Heston-led masterpiece from 1959, an incredibly expansive and influential film whose DNA can be seen in everything from the Star Wars prequels to Gladiator and even modern superhero movies. But none of that ingenious influence is present here, only the watered-down genes passed onto neutered offspring.





Nothing that made that most exceptional of retellings so awesome to behold is enough to captivate a modern audience: what’s a protagonist's 5-year stint away from his family when Gladiator had them strung up and set ablaze before his very eyes? What’s a sand-flecked chariot race when the technical astonishment of The Phantom Menace’s podrace sequence still electrifies? The story of Ben-Hur used to be an event, but this mostly beat-for-beat repetition merely falls in line beside contemporary ill-fated swords and sandals resuscitations such as Clash of the Titans, or Pompeii.





I say mostly beat-for-beat, because writers Keith R. Clarke and John Ridley do occasionally deviate from previous versions of the story. Rather than complete enslavement to the original tale, they’ve opted for an approach more akin to an exam question: “In your own words, describe the plight of Judah Ben-Hur (12 marks, show your working)”. Messala’s campaign in Germania is explored in a series of gritty flashbacks, Simonides is cut down without a word, and Judah leaves Arrius to drown during the sea battle. A grave error is made in placing the chariot race as the climax and focal point of the film (we begin with the stable gates opening before flashing backwards), and a final, gob-smackingly misguided alteration transforms the very nature of the story from one of vengeance to something completely inert; the end credits music drowned out by a chorus of exasperated sighs and irritated tuts from the audience.





It’s fair to say that Huston and Kebbell – though undeniably talented – are no match for Heston and Stephen Boyd. The homoerotic subtext written into Wyler’s version (much to the later disdain of Heston) is very much subdued here, and Messala’s decision to leave his would-be brother behind to serve the needs of his Emperor feels forced and sudden. As demonstrated by his star turns in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Warcraft, Kebbell works best in showy performances, but here he’s uncomfortably restrained and often looks plain bored. Huston wears his vengeful grumble on his sleeve, though most of the real acting is left to his various tangled wigs. Although, compared to Morgan Freeman as Sheik Ilderim (whose hairdo resembles the alien dreadlocks of the monster in Predator), his turn is positively stellar.



