...but I still wouldn't recommend this for casual family viewing because it couldn't find the right balance between educational and entertaining. I honestly don't see kids being distracted by it for more than a few minutes, and even older viewers would probably find it tiresome.
At first glance, "Ramses" may appear to be a cheap knockoff of "The Prince of Egypt," but it actually recounts the beginning of the 19th Dynasty, when Pharaoh Horemheb selected his vizier Paramesse (Ramesses I) as successor. The "Ramses" of this story was the grandfather of Ramesses II, the pharaoh often associated with the Exodus (although many historians believe that was more likely an earlier dynasty). Don't bother waiting for Moses to show up, this is a totally different story.
Short take: I didn't think this was very good. Didn't think it was terrible, just not very good. The animation and voice work were low budget and it showed, and there's a lot of dialogue which is heavy on exposition and often rattles off names that will probably be unfamiliar to a lot of ears. There's very little narrative, so the movie comes off more like an animated textbook with no context or reasons given for why the viewer should care about this arbitrary historical figure, and it doesn't get many of the facts right. The sound and music were good though, and the battles, while bloodless, could be dynamic and surprisingly brutal. Not really suitable for leisure, too dubious to be considered educational, and some might even find it too dull for heckling.
Longer take: this is from the Italian filmmaker Orlando Corradi, who's been doing children's programming in Europe since the 90's through his Mondo TV. Probably his most notorious projects were two animated movies about the Titanic that featured rapping animals and the negation of more than 1500 people dying in one of the worst tragedies of the 20th Century. If you're already familiar with any of his other works, you'll know what kind of quality to expect, but if not, well, this is certainly not an "animated classic" as touted in the title and contradicted by the lack of any reviews in nearly 15 years.
It was made with "limited animation," the cost-efficient option when a company only has a few animators to produce weekly 20-40 minutes shows or a 100-minute movie. In the case of "Ramses," the animation is minimal, the color palette elementary, and most of the character models are so similar that it's hard to tell who's who, never mind the obvious copy/paste crowds. Those loyal to Pharaoh are shown as virtuous Good Guys wearing white head cloths, and those who oppose him as devious Bad Guys with black hair, no subtlety or grey inbetween whatsoever. Then there are the Nubians, exact same character models but painted in dark purple blackface.
The English voice work was a blend of over- and underacting done in British and American accents, and there's a Scottish accent that really sticks out. The one female VA's voice was monotonous and often difficult to understand. The script lacks characterization or any other reason to become invested in what's happening, the lines are there simply to deliver information. And I have a feeling the dialogue sounds just as stilted in Italian.
It took a couple attempts to watch this all the way through. I had trouble following it because they throw around a lot of ancient names and don't enunciate very well, and most of the time I couldn't tell the characters apart anyway. There's no real indications of time passage either so it felt like everything happened over the course of a few days. I was able to catch more details on a second viewing just to see if I could follow it, although I still needed to rewind once in a while and couldn't watch in one viewing.
As far as the historical accuracy, it's generally not, which is unsurprising given this company's habit of embellishment. I understand that liberties have to be taken when describing ancient events, so things like the use of milled paper centuries before it's invented can be overlooked, but a little research reveals that many key events are distorted or blatantly false. For example, one of the sons of the Hittite king Suppiluliumas was indeed assassinated, but he and his successor son died soon after from disease brought into the Hittite kingdom by Egyptian prisoners (which the movie seems to portray as a Hittite ploy to poison Egypt), not in battle avenging the assassination. Ramesses I was also chosen mainly because he had a son and grandson, yet this movie shows his son to still be a young boy when Horemheb dies.
Overall, it's passable quality, certainly no 10/10 "underrated masterpiece" but I could tell that effort was made, the animation was mostly watchable despite the subpar English dub, and it managed to hold my interest more in the second half. It relies on recognition of the title name to attract viewers, so those who are interested in that part of history might get something out of it, but it's not a movie most would sit down to watch for fun and shouldn't be taken as a factual account.
At first glance, "Ramses" may appear to be a cheap knockoff of "The Prince of Egypt," but it actually recounts the beginning of the 19th Dynasty, when Pharaoh Horemheb selected his vizier Paramesse (Ramesses I) as successor. The "Ramses" of this story was the grandfather of Ramesses II, the pharaoh often associated with the Exodus (although many historians believe that was more likely an earlier dynasty). Don't bother waiting for Moses to show up, this is a totally different story.
Short take: I didn't think this was very good. Didn't think it was terrible, just not very good. The animation and voice work were low budget and it showed, and there's a lot of dialogue which is heavy on exposition and often rattles off names that will probably be unfamiliar to a lot of ears. There's very little narrative, so the movie comes off more like an animated textbook with no context or reasons given for why the viewer should care about this arbitrary historical figure, and it doesn't get many of the facts right. The sound and music were good though, and the battles, while bloodless, could be dynamic and surprisingly brutal. Not really suitable for leisure, too dubious to be considered educational, and some might even find it too dull for heckling.
Longer take: this is from the Italian filmmaker Orlando Corradi, who's been doing children's programming in Europe since the 90's through his Mondo TV. Probably his most notorious projects were two animated movies about the Titanic that featured rapping animals and the negation of more than 1500 people dying in one of the worst tragedies of the 20th Century. If you're already familiar with any of his other works, you'll know what kind of quality to expect, but if not, well, this is certainly not an "animated classic" as touted in the title and contradicted by the lack of any reviews in nearly 15 years.
It was made with "limited animation," the cost-efficient option when a company only has a few animators to produce weekly 20-40 minutes shows or a 100-minute movie. In the case of "Ramses," the animation is minimal, the color palette elementary, and most of the character models are so similar that it's hard to tell who's who, never mind the obvious copy/paste crowds. Those loyal to Pharaoh are shown as virtuous Good Guys wearing white head cloths, and those who oppose him as devious Bad Guys with black hair, no subtlety or grey inbetween whatsoever. Then there are the Nubians, exact same character models but painted in dark purple blackface.
The English voice work was a blend of over- and underacting done in British and American accents, and there's a Scottish accent that really sticks out. The one female VA's voice was monotonous and often difficult to understand. The script lacks characterization or any other reason to become invested in what's happening, the lines are there simply to deliver information. And I have a feeling the dialogue sounds just as stilted in Italian.
It took a couple attempts to watch this all the way through. I had trouble following it because they throw around a lot of ancient names and don't enunciate very well, and most of the time I couldn't tell the characters apart anyway. There's no real indications of time passage either so it felt like everything happened over the course of a few days. I was able to catch more details on a second viewing just to see if I could follow it, although I still needed to rewind once in a while and couldn't watch in one viewing.
As far as the historical accuracy, it's generally not, which is unsurprising given this company's habit of embellishment. I understand that liberties have to be taken when describing ancient events, so things like the use of milled paper centuries before it's invented can be overlooked, but a little research reveals that many key events are distorted or blatantly false. For example, one of the sons of the Hittite king Suppiluliumas was indeed assassinated, but he and his successor son died soon after from disease brought into the Hittite kingdom by Egyptian prisoners (which the movie seems to portray as a Hittite ploy to poison Egypt), not in battle avenging the assassination. Ramesses I was also chosen mainly because he had a son and grandson, yet this movie shows his son to still be a young boy when Horemheb dies.
Overall, it's passable quality, certainly no 10/10 "underrated masterpiece" but I could tell that effort was made, the animation was mostly watchable despite the subpar English dub, and it managed to hold my interest more in the second half. It relies on recognition of the title name to attract viewers, so those who are interested in that part of history might get something out of it, but it's not a movie most would sit down to watch for fun and shouldn't be taken as a factual account.
