2.5/4
I knew Ben-Hur had a gay subtext going into it, but Jesus Christ I had no idea it was be this flamingly homoerotic. I suppose something had to be included to make the damn thing more entertaining; outside of the rightfully famous chariot race and a few other scenes of impressive scale and spectacle, the film is mostly a 3-and-a-half-hour dirge which could have been half the length it was if Charlton Heston didn’t spend 10 seconds grunting and staring intensely at other characters before and after every single line. Yet, I still kind of enjoyed it. The campiness and absurdity of the film mixed with the spectacle do make it somewhat worth the slog, and I’m always a sucker for the he-man idiot that is Charlton Heston.
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