(Those who found "Dreams" cornball were correct, but they missed the point.) "The Prince of Egypt" is the same kind of film (as were, on quite a different scale, " A Bug's Life" and " Antz"). One of the reasons I was so enthusiastic, earlier in 1998, about " Dark City," " What Dreams May Come" and "Babe: Pig In The City" is that they showed me sights I had never imagined before, while most movies were showing me actors talking to one another. The more movies I see, the more grateful I am for new films that go to the trouble of creating astonishing new images. It's not that easy to explain the fire and the locusts. Moses turns his staff into a snake to impress Rameses, and magicians show how the trick has been done. In place of the usual twosomes and threesomes of little characters doing comic relief, we get two temple magicians (voices of Steve Martin and Martin Short), and a duet ("Playing With the Big Boys").
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The movie is not shy about being entertaining, but it maintains a certain seriousness.
All leads up to the spectacular parting of the Red Sea, an event made for animation unlike de Mille's oddly unconvincing vertical walls of water, the parting here has an almost physical plausibility we can see how the water parts and where it goes. Fire rains from the sky, locusts descend in clouds, and all the first-born are killed.
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"I am a Hebrew," Moses sternly informs him, "and the God of the Hebrews came to me and commands that you let my people go." When Rameses disagrees (and doubles the slaves' workload), God unleashes a series of punishments. While staying with them, Moses hears the voice from the Burning Bush: "I am that I am, the God of your fathers." For Moses, accepting this god means renouncing untold power and riches, and Rameses (now the Pharaoh) is first incredulous, then angered. At an oasis, Moses encounters a former slave girl, whom he had helped to escape from the Pharoah's empire, and who is the daughter of the Hebrew high priest Jethro ( Danny Glover). After he happens to meet his real brother and sister, Aaron ( Jeff Goldblum) and Miriam ( Sandra Bullock), and learns the truth about his heritage, he runs away into the desert. And when Rameses is named regent, his first act is to name Moses as royal chief architect.īut something within Moses knows that the Egyptians are not his people. As boys, they get in trouble together (one drag race in chariots, which speed excitingly down collapsing scaffolds, results in the destruction of a temple). What it emphasizes more than earlier versions is how completely the orphan child is taken into the family of the Pharaoh ( Patrick Stewart) he is a well-loved adopted son who becomes the playmate and best friend of Rameses ( Ralph Fiennes), the Pharaoh's son. The film follows Moses (voice of Val Kilmer) from the day when he is plucked from the Nile by the queen ( Helen Mirren) to the day when he returns from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. In crowd scenes, both here and when the Hebrews pass through the Red Sea, the movie uses new computer techniques to give the illusion that each of the countless tiny figures is moving separately that makes the "extras" uncannily convincing. Griffith's "Intolerance." A vast Sphinx gazes out over the desert, and slaves bend to the weight of mighty blocks of stone. The "sets" here are inspired by some of the great movie sets of the past, including those in de Mille's original film and D.W. That's established dramatically in the wonderful prologue scenes, which show the kingdom and Hebrew slaves building pyramids under the whips of the Pharaoh's taskmasters. This is a film that shows animation growing up and embracing more complex themes, instead of chaining itself in the category of children's entertainment. It employs computer-generated animation as an aid to traditional techniques, rather than as a substitute for them, and we sense the touch of human artists in the vision behind the Egyptian monuments, the lonely desert vistas, the thrill of the chariot race, the personalities of the characters. "The Prince of Egypt" is one of the best-looking animated films ever made. Moses gives Rameses his chance (free our people and accept our God) and Rameses blows it, with dire results for the Egyptian side. I have always rather thought God could have spared man a lot of trouble by casting his net more widely, emphasizing universality rather than tribalism, but there you have it.
We like these stories because in the one we subscribe to, we are the chosen people.
The story of Exodus has its parallels in many religions, always with the same result: God chooses one of his peoples over the others.