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The 21st-century remake of "Ben-Hur" has one great 10-minute sequence, and director Timur Bekmambetov teases it like Bob Costas introducing a gymnastics final through a long slog of a movie.
After starting at the beginning of the race, the movie flashes back eight years, as the Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) and his adopted Roman brother, Messala Severus (Toby Kebbell), are the best of friends in Jerusalem around A.D. 33. Messala, though, wants to strike out on his own as a Roman soldier and returns years later as a trusted officer to the new governor, Pontius Pilate (Pilou Asbaek), in the occupation of Judea.
After an attack on Pilate's entourage, Judah is arrested along with his mother (Ayelet Zurer) and sister (Sofia Black-D'Elia), and his life as a galley slave rowing a Roman warship begins. While he ends up racing horses for the African gambler Ilderim (Morgan Freeman, who of course narrates as well), Judah's wife, Esther, becomes a convert to a rabbi in Jerusalem, Jesus of Nazareth (Rodrigo Santoro).
Writers Keith R. Clarke and John Ridley strip down Lew Wallace's 1880 novel even further than the Oscar-winning 1959 epic, but the result still feels bloated and ponderous. The exception is that 10 minutes, the famed chariot race, which produces as much white-knuckle excitement as before. Alas, in a cast enlivened by Freeman's good humor and Santoro's unpretentious portrayal of Jesus, Huston's performance is as wooden as Heston's ever was.
'Ben-Hur'
Opening Friday, Aug. 19, at theaters everywhere; rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and disturbing images; 124 minutes.