The movie isn't really saying anything, and is just cruising on the fumes left over from our associations with a classic.

| Feb 1, 2018

Ben-Hur isn't the worst film of the year, but from a technical standpoint it certainly looks it.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Nov 20, 2017

Very rarely does it try to impress us, or overwhelm us, shock us, move us.

| Aug 10, 2017

Rankly incompetent.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 28, 2016

Somehow, Ben-Hur 2016 feels longer and duller than its predecessor.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 5, 2016

What's wrong with the new Ben-Hur? How long have you got? This is a textbook case, step by agonising step, of how not to make a big-budget blockbuster.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Oct 10, 2016

A thuddingly dull-witted remake of a biblical epic that wasn't exactly subtle to begin with.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 11, 2016

Fitfully entertaining but also curiously old fashioned, this is a film that only really sparks into life when the crowds are baying for blood and the chariots are in action. Apart from that, it seems like The Life Of Brian without the jokes.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 9, 2016

Epic fail.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 8, 2016

Call it wholemeal bread and circuses - an odd diet of sincerity and spectacle that nonetheless hits some kind of spot.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 7, 2016

Anyone wanting to experience the "bigness" of Ben-Hur would be advised to check out the 1959 or even the 1925 versions of the story -- both are vastly superior to this lamentable effort.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 2, 2016

Though it seems unlikely to dislodge William Wyler's 1959 version, its story of a Judean prince (Jack Huston) who keeps running into Jesus of Nazareth (Rodrigo Santoro) offers plenty of action and spectacle.

| Aug 25, 2016

Like so many remakes, this one never answers the basic question of why this story was worth retelling in the first place.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 25, 2016

The result is a remake with no guiding principle beyond mere existence.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Aug 22, 2016

Something soulless and empty, with all the mystery and grandeur of the tale just gone.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 21, 2016

The last of the summer's movie epics is a digitalized eyesore hobbled in every department by staggering incompetence.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 20, 2016

This new version of Ben-Hur is consistently at war with itself.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 19, 2016

Just because you're rolling in the chariot doesn't make you Charlton Heston. That's a lesson this weightless, instantly disposable remake of the 1959 sword-and-sandal Oscar winner learns the hard way.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 19, 2016

Ben-Hur plays out, far from a modern day classic, but as spirited summer fare for an entertaining afternoon at the movies....

| Aug 19, 2016

Ben-Hur has clearly been designed and marketed to feed the appetite for projects with a spiritual foundation. Beyond the merits of that concept, though, there's precious little to celebrate creatively speaking.

| Aug 19, 2016