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SYNOPSIS:
Condemned to die by Pharaoh while just a baby, Hebrew Moses
is set adrift oon the River Nile by his mother and his sister.
Rescued by the daughter of Pharaoh, He grows up thinking he's
an Egyptian Prince. Eventually, exiled from Egypt when he
is exposed as an Jew, He is touched by God and told that he
will lead His enslaved chosen people to the promised land.
With the hand of God firmly on his shoulder and with faith
as his only weapon, Moses performs miracles, casts down plagues,
evades a pursuing Egyptians army, parts the red sea and after
fourty years of leading the Hebrew chosen ones to the promised
land is embraced by God and led to a better place.
MOVIE
REVIEW
This reviewer
has something to confess: This animated feature about the
famos biblical tale is so bland and dreary; he had to pop
the soundtrack of 1998’s other biblical animated movie
The Prince of Egypt into the music player to soothe his nerves.
You’d expect a vast improvement in storytelling and
technology after almost ten years, but horrors of horrors,
watching the story about Moses is almost a painful experience.
While
we are not the best people to tell you whether this is an
accurate depiction of the bible, the synopsis tells us that
this 88-minute movie relates the historic encounter of the
Hebrews' exodus out of Egyptian bondage. The tale chronicles
Moses’ childhood as the adopted son of Pharaoh grows
into The Chosen One by God to liberate His children.
We hate
to compare, but like the 1998 Dreamworks Animation production,
this movie boasts of a star studded cast. Academy Award winner
Ben Kingsley (Ghandi) is the narrator of this epic tale, Christian
Slater (True Romance) provides the voice of Moses, Alfred
Molina (Spider-man 2) provides the voice of Ramses while Elliot
Gould (Ocean’s Thirteen) provides the voice of God.
These acclaimed actors fare well in their roles, but nothing
can save the movie from the ghastly animation of this multi-national
collaboration between Singapore’s iVL Animation Studio,
USA’s Promenade Pictures and New Zealand’s Huhu
Studios. The characters are so unattractively drawn, you’d
think that this movie would only be broadcast on television
– and we are not even talking about prime time here.
This is definitely a shame, because (we hate to compare again)
if you look at how successful The Prince of Egypt was with
its technique 10 years ago, you’d think that this is
a big step backwards.
The only
thing worth our slight commendation is its rather exquisite
DVD packaging that resembles the bible. There is even a bookmark
in the box to tell you how to easily remember the Ten Commandments
using the alphabets from the phrase “I Am the Lord”.
Maybe
everyone involved in this movie was waiting for a miracle,
but while it makes me wonder whether the acclaimed voice actors
actually saw the final footages while recording their voices,
I shall continue to indulge myself in the more glorious yesteryears
of The Prince of Egypt. Somehow, even if it was considered
inappropriate to have scream queens Mariah Carey and Whitney
Houston belting out the end title song “When You Believe”,
you’d rather listen to that than to watch this mind-numbing
and lackluster movie.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
This Code 3 disc contains a 15-minute “Featurette”
where you see church goers being asked about the
Ten Commandments and the actors recording sessions, a 14-minute
section “Selected Film Clips” where
you relive some of the movie’s bland animation scenes,
two 3-minute character introductions “Moses
Podcast” and “Ramses Podcast”
about the two men, and a “Trailer”
which doesn’t do its job of attracting audiences.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The
disc’s acceptable visual transfer doesn’t save
the movie from being one of the worst animated features we’ve
seen, and it is presented in its English Dolby Digital 5.1
soundtrack.
MOVIE
RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by John Li
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