So this is the next movie that the Unspooled podcast is talking about (it’s #100 on the AFI list), so we watched it, and… it is a hot fucking mess of a movie. Spoilers follow.

So, for instance, a thing I didn’t know is that it’s an explicitly Christian movie. I thought it was just a historical drama about Romans! I didn’t know that Jesus would be a fucking character! But yeah, it starts out with him being born, and even though he doesn’t have a single speaking line, his presence pops up periodically, and the crucifixion is like the end of the movie.

And so you have this movie about a particular Jewish noble, and his trials and tribulations and triumphs, right, but then it’s all crammed into this big Christian conversion movie thing, and it’s just so weird. I can’t tell if they’re telling the main story of the movie as a lure to get people into the Christian one, or if they wanted to make the main movie, but threw the Christian wrapper around it to get funding or some shit.

So yeah. Even when it’s not being absurdly confused about what it wants to be, it’s mostly silly — Charlton Heston is not a good actor — and very cheesy. There’s very little good about this movie.

Except for: The chariot race. Which, let’s be clear, is totally excellent, in a way that only pre-CG stuff can be. Because if it were CG, it’d be boring, because whatever, they rendered a chariot race. But as it is, they actually had horses running around with chariots behind them. And yeah, obviously it’s not real in the real-world sense, but there is a reality to it, and that “how did they do this” feeling makes it way more compelling than it could be with modern tech as an option. Like, even if they didn’t use computers these days, if they literally made this scene exactly the same way they did back then, you’d just assume they used CG, so it wouldn’t be as impressive. (Also of course they did make a CG-rendered version of this, which is why I kept calling the bad guy in this movie Sebulba.)

So that was a cool scene, and should have been the climax of the movie, but… see above about the movie’s weird Jesus shit, and of course the climax had to be the crucifixion, but then to tie it to Ben, they had his mom and sister get leprosy earlier in the movie, which the instant you hear “leper” you’re like “oh, bro, you gotta go see Jesus, he’ll clear that right up for you,” and sure enough, as soon as he dies, it rains, and washes the leprosy away, and it’s A MIRACLE and everyone is so happy, and I’m literally laughing at how cheeseball it is.

Like, can you imagine an audience that is actually emotionally moved by an ending like that, that finds it stirring or cries or whatever? I really can’t, but I’m guessing that real people back when did have that kind of reaction, somehow, idk. Like, Heston actually got a best acting Oscar for his cornball performance. I just don’t even know, man.