In The Name Of Ben Hur is directed by Mark Atkins. This straight to video movie is being released around the same time that the big budget remake of Ben Hur is being released in theaters. Thanks Asylum, you've done it again by churning out yet another cheap looking horrible blatant cash grab of a movie.
Most of you know what you're getting into with an Asylum movie, but for the sake of giving me something to do and for those of you who have never heard of Asylum before, then read on, I'll try to explain their latest offering and why you should never ever watch it.
Do not, I repeat do not go into this movie expecting a production value any higher than an episode of a very cheap TV show. The acting is a mixed bag, a couple of the actors are good but most of the younger main actors are simply terrible, and the guy that plays Ben Hur changes his accent a couple of times during the movie, which is quite funny in a distracting way. Anyway, onto the fight scenes, oh yeah I nearly forgot, there's a female Chinese assassin in this movie, gotta love historically accurate movies, anyway the fight scenes all pretty much consist of Romans with swords getting knocked out by either people punching them in the face once or Ben Hur hitting them with his staff once. Don't expect to see any blood in this movie except for the occasional bloody nose, even when someone gets stabbed with a dagger there is no blood, and when Ben Hur picks up an axe he ain't going to be using the sharp end to attack the guys with swords that are trying to kill him, not when he can use the handle to knock them out instead! What a guy! It saves them having to do blood effects! Yaaaay, cost cutting! In one scene our heroes free some slaves from the Romans and the 2 guards see their faces, but instead of killing them so there are no witnesses Ben Hur just one punch knocks them out with his magical fist and leaves them alive so they can identify him and his buddies later, makes absolutely no sense, which brings me on to the plot...
The overall story is adequate I guess, it's generic bland and forgettable but at least it's not overly insulting to the intelligence (not counting the horrible fight scenes), there are quite a few instances though of stupid people doing stupid things that will leave you shouting at your TV while wishing you were were watching the new Ghostbusters or an infomercial instead. Not once while watching this movie did I care about the characters or feel immersed in the world and that is because the writing of these characters was pretty poor, take a minute to imagine every stereotype of character that you'd expect to see in a movie of this time period and they'll be in this movie, just nowhere near as interesting as the ones that you imagined in your head are.
In the end I hated this movie, I hated it because of what it is, a cheap cash grab. Not one person on this movie from the director to the person who made sure that all the clothing looked like it was straight off the rack gave a damn about this movie, seriously, all the clothing from the Roman armor to peasant clothing looked brand new, no stains no tarnish, brand new. There was no passion involved in making this movie, and it shows.
I gave it 3 stars, it's not enjoyable enough to be entertaining or bad enough to be funny, it's just a forgettable souless movie that you should only watch if you want to fall asleep and don't have any Ambien in the medicine cabinet.
Most of you know what you're getting into with an Asylum movie, but for the sake of giving me something to do and for those of you who have never heard of Asylum before, then read on, I'll try to explain their latest offering and why you should never ever watch it.
Do not, I repeat do not go into this movie expecting a production value any higher than an episode of a very cheap TV show. The acting is a mixed bag, a couple of the actors are good but most of the younger main actors are simply terrible, and the guy that plays Ben Hur changes his accent a couple of times during the movie, which is quite funny in a distracting way. Anyway, onto the fight scenes, oh yeah I nearly forgot, there's a female Chinese assassin in this movie, gotta love historically accurate movies, anyway the fight scenes all pretty much consist of Romans with swords getting knocked out by either people punching them in the face once or Ben Hur hitting them with his staff once. Don't expect to see any blood in this movie except for the occasional bloody nose, even when someone gets stabbed with a dagger there is no blood, and when Ben Hur picks up an axe he ain't going to be using the sharp end to attack the guys with swords that are trying to kill him, not when he can use the handle to knock them out instead! What a guy! It saves them having to do blood effects! Yaaaay, cost cutting! In one scene our heroes free some slaves from the Romans and the 2 guards see their faces, but instead of killing them so there are no witnesses Ben Hur just one punch knocks them out with his magical fist and leaves them alive so they can identify him and his buddies later, makes absolutely no sense, which brings me on to the plot...
The overall story is adequate I guess, it's generic bland and forgettable but at least it's not overly insulting to the intelligence (not counting the horrible fight scenes), there are quite a few instances though of stupid people doing stupid things that will leave you shouting at your TV while wishing you were were watching the new Ghostbusters or an infomercial instead. Not once while watching this movie did I care about the characters or feel immersed in the world and that is because the writing of these characters was pretty poor, take a minute to imagine every stereotype of character that you'd expect to see in a movie of this time period and they'll be in this movie, just nowhere near as interesting as the ones that you imagined in your head are.
In the end I hated this movie, I hated it because of what it is, a cheap cash grab. Not one person on this movie from the director to the person who made sure that all the clothing looked like it was straight off the rack gave a damn about this movie, seriously, all the clothing from the Roman armor to peasant clothing looked brand new, no stains no tarnish, brand new. There was no passion involved in making this movie, and it shows.
I gave it 3 stars, it's not enjoyable enough to be entertaining or bad enough to be funny, it's just a forgettable souless movie that you should only watch if you want to fall asleep and don't have any Ambien in the medicine cabinet.