‘Ben-Hur’ an utterly unnecessary remake of 1959 classic

“Ben-Hur” improves on the 1959 Charlton Heston classic in precisely one way: Even with a run time of more than two hours, it’s still a full 90 minutes shorter.

That’s it.

In almost every other aspect, the remake feels less like a big-screen epic than more of the religious-themed TV programming cranked out by “Ben-Hur’s” husband-and-wife producing team of Mark Burnett and Roma Downey (“The Bible,” “The Dovekeepers”) — albeit with a slightly larger budget.

Never once forgetting that the source material by author Lew Wallace is titled “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ,” this new version, written by Keith Clarke (“The Way Back”) and John Ridley (“12 Years a Slave”), places Jesus front and center in a way the 1959 version never did.

In that movie, you barely saw his face and he rarely if ever spoke. Here, Jesus (Rodrigo Santoro) offers sage advice to Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston), jumps in to prevent a stoning, preaches kindness and forgiveness and gets to deliver all the most memorable lines from his crucifixion.

It’s almost surprising director Timur Bekmambetov (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) didn’t insert Jesus into the famed chariot race alongside Judah.

This “Ben-Hur” more explicitly details the relationship between Judah and Messala (Toby Kebbell), the orphaned Roman taken in by Judah’s noble family and raised like his brother.

Setting off to make his fortune as a soldier, Messala wins the favor of Pontius Pilate (Pilou Asbaek), who would soon become ruler of Judah’s native Jerusalem. But during Pilate’s first trip to the city, which has been overrun by “zealots’ in armed insurrection against their Roman occupiers, there’s an incident that causes Messala to side with Pilate over his family. Messala sentences his mother and sister to die and Judah to live out the remainder of his years rowing in the galley of a slave ship.

“Don’t care. Just survive,” Judah tells himself when nearby slaves are mistreated.

This time out, though, there’s no mercy shown by the Roman consul aboard the ship, no grudging respect. Judah never rescues him and is never welcomed into Rome. After the ship sinks five years into his servitude, Judah simply frees himself from his shackles and washes ashore, all muscled and shaggy, where he is taken in by Sheik Ilderim (Morgan Freeman), who looks more than a bit like a latter-day dreadlocked Billy Ocean.

The sheik prepares Judah for the big chariot race against Messala that’s teased in the film’s opening seconds, just in case someone, somewhere had no idea it was coming. The sheik teaches Judah all the tricks and secrets as well as the pitfalls to avoid, even coaching him from the sidelines like the Mick to Judah’s Rocky.

Despite six decades of technological advances and the presence of a director who has previously shown an ability to present coherent action sequences, the chariot race is a mess, lacking every bit of the drama of the Heston version. That race was truly a spectacle, one of the most famous scenes in movie history. This one is just a bunch of quick edits and computer-generated effects that offer little incentive to care, let alone cheer.

And the feel-good ending that’s tacked on after the crucifixion, which gets much more screen time here, just rings false. Especially since this “Ben-Hur” has been reduced to a simple tale of revenge.

The 1959 version isn’t perfect, despite its winning a record 11 Academy Awards. While watching it, in all of its nearly four hours of glory, you can practically see the pages flying off your nearest calendar as days and weeks seem to pass and seasons seem to change. Yet it still won an Oscar for editing. Apparently every other movie released that year was at least 13 hours long.

Almost nothing works in this “Ben-Hur,” though. The acting rarely rings true. There’s no depth to any of the Romans; they’re simply two dimensions of evil. And when the chariot race — the main reason audiences turned out in droves for the Heston version — is among the least interesting scenes, ouch.

“Ben-Hur” is far from the worst movie of the year. It probably won’t even be the worst movie of the month.

It’s just one of the least necessary.

And it would take a team of horses to drag me to see it again.

Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @life_onthecouch.