“Messala Severus: You should have stayed away

 Judah Ben-Hur: You should have killed me.

Messala Severus: I will.”

If the dodginess of the above film poster and the groan-inducing creakiness of the above dialogue do not indicate to you how ‘blah’ Ben-Hur is then there’s no point reading this mini-review. I say mini-review as I really cannot be bothered to write a full review for this film – as a desperate girlfriend would call out to her drunk boyfriend squaring up to someone at 3am on a High Street, “It’s not worth it!!!!”

The film is bland, boring and disposable. At 123 minutes long it feels far longer than the legendary epic of 1959. The script it dull and boring, with shoe-horned in religion and a bizarrely attractive Jesus. The cast are all beautiful pretty thing with varying degrees of acting ability. The fact they have all been assigned nondescript characters does not help either. Toby Kebbell needs to find a new agent because yet again (click here see my review of last year’s disaster that was Fantastic Four) his talent is utterly wasted. Jack Huston is fine, if very vanilla. There’s no real point in discussing Morgan Freeman‘s role in things – clearly his expensive hiring to try and redeem the film did not work as the film is bombing in most countries it is being released in. He also possess dreadlocks in the film which is a sight I never thought I’d see.

I saw this for free as I have an Unlimited Card, therefore I only felt shortchanged of my time rather than my money. If I’d paid I would be angry at how tedious the film is. How can such a literal Biblical epic be so dull? It’s severely lacking in personality only the way a needless modern Hollywood remake can be.