The Ace Black Movie Blog

Sunday 31 December 2017

Movie Review: Bad Girls (1994)

A western with four cowgirls as the main protagonists, Bad Girls has a potentially intriguing gender-bending concept but nothing else to offer.

In the wild west, Cody (Madeleine Stowe), Anita (Mary Stuart Masterson), Eileen (Andie MacDowell) and Lily (Drew Barrymore) are friends and whores with hearts of gold having fallen on hard times through no fault of their own. When Cody kills a rough customer, the other three girls rescue her from a hanging and all four go on the run with Pinkerton detectives giving chase. Anita believes she may have a land claim in Oregon, and Cody offers to invest her life savings to help start a sawmill business on the property.

But the cash withdrawal transaction is interrupted by a hold-up committed by the outlaw Kid Jarrett (James Russo) and his gang, and he takes off with Cody's money while Eileen is jailed in the ensuing chaos. Cody and Jarrett share a history, and she is intent on tracking him down and reclaiming her money. Stranger Josh McCoy (Dermot Mulroney) is also interested in finding Jarrett for revenge reasons, while Eileen establishes a relationship with land owner William Tucker (James LeGros).

Bad Girls is an obvious attempt to recreate the appeal of 1988's Young Guns, this time with four photogenic women in the lead roles. Whatever the original intent, the production quickly ran into trouble. Original director Tamra Davis was fired a few days into the shoot and replaced by Jonathan Kaplan, the script was rewritten on the fly, and the lack of cohesion is painfully evident on the screen.

Stuck somewhere between a women's buddy movie and misplaced aspirations to mimic The Wild Bunch complete with a Gatling gun making a late appearance, Bad Girls gallops in quicksand: the harder the film tries to be meaningful, the quicker it sinks. The women are plastic characters provided with one-line backstories, and then left alone to look pouty pretty. The villain is straight out of those bad Spaghetti Westerns where the baddie laughs maniacally at...nothing in particular.

The plot has enough holes to make that Gatling gun proud, and the screenwriters are almost visible to the side of the action frantically dreaming up next morning's scene -- which of the woman shall we place in peril next?!

Given the creative carnage around them the four actresses do their best, but they are further handicapped by flawless hair, perfect make-up, flattering clothes and an apparent abundance of soap throughout: they are made to look gorgeous no matter what trouble they are in, undermining any pretensions of realism.

The energetic climactic shootout injects a sudden dose of adrenaline, but it's too late: by then the film's corpse is well and truly cold.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Dad (1989)

A family drama, Dad tackles issues of aging and the complex dynamics between fathers and sons as well as husbands and wives.

In Los Angeles, elderly couple Bette and Jake Tremont (Olympia Dukakis and Jack Lemmon) are living out their retirement, with Bette controlling every last detail of Jake's life. As a result he is disengaged, disinterested and utterly dependent. When Bette suffers a heart attack, their son John (Ted Danson) a Wall Street executive, flies in to help his sister Annie (Kathy Baker) and her husband Mario (Kevin Spacey) care for Jake.

John has not seen his parents for a few years and is shocked at Jake's emotional deterioration. With Bette in hospital, he sets about reviving his dad's spirit and love for life. Gradually Jake perks up and starts to take a much more active role in his own well-being. But more changes will impact Jake's promising rejuvenation: Bette returns home; John's wayward son Billy (Ethan Hawke) arrives for an unexpected visit; and an unwelcome health diagnosis will all play a role in the family's happiness.

Directed and written by Gary David Goldberg and based on a book by William Wharton, Dad enjoys a committed Jack Lemmon central performance, but is otherwise emotionally all over the place. With an intimate focus on familial matters the film is not many notches above standard television fare, but Lemmon at least ensures that great big-screen acting resides at the heart of the melodrama.

The film rides a nauseating emotional rollercoaster and crams too many sudden health turnarounds in less than two hours. Jake Tremont goes through about two and a half jarring down and up cycles in his physical and psychological well-being, dragging his small family along as he navigates up the mountain from the depth of despair to the giddiness of seemingly great health only to start another descent that precedes yet another climb. As a result Goldberg loses grip on what the film is intended to convey, with obscure and complex medical and psychological issues barely described before being allowed to run loose.

And Jake's health is far from the only matter of consequence: Dad also tries to explore the dynamic between a domineering wife and a submissive husband, an issue that probably deserved more exposition that it receives in the gaps between Jake's yo-yo health. And with John for the first time experiencing the fragility of his father's health, he reassesses his relationship with his own son Billy, and the film includes some decent side-quest scenes as the next generation attempts to avoid the same mistakes.

Ted Danson provides decent support, but is not helped by a script that never explains how he can suddenly shift gears, mentally and pragmatically, to be away for so long from his high-powered Wall Street job. Danson also struggles when the script demands strong displays of emotion, which are never his forte.

Dad offers some substantive topics, but overburdens its own capabilities.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Saturday 30 December 2017

Movie Review: How To Make An American Quilt (1995)

An anthology about women's diverse experiences and perspectives, How To Make An American Quilt weaves a loose narrative about a young woman at the emotional crossroads spending the summer with her great aunt's circle of friends.

Finn (Winona Ryder) is in her mid-twenties, struggling to finish her Master's thesis and engaged to be married to carpenter Sam (Dermot Mulroney). She spends the summer at the country home of her great aunt Glady (Anne Bancroft), who is part of a quilting group led by housekeeper Anna (Maya Angelou). As the lazy days unfold and the friends gets to work on a wedding quilt for Finn, she learns their personal stories.

Finn's grandmother Hy (Ellen Burstyn) has a strained relationship with her sister Glady, stemming from a moment of weakness when Hy's husband was on his deathbed.
Sophia (Lois Smith) is now cranky and bitter. As a young woman (played by Samantha Mathis) she was a sublime diver who fell in love and married geologist Preston (Loren Dean), but her married life did not unfold as she expected.
Em (Jean Simmons) is married to artist Dean (Derrick O'Connor), who has always had a wandering eye.
Constance (Kate Nelligan) first lost her dog and then her husband; her subsequent behaviour means that she is now a bit of a misfit in the group.
As a young black servant Anna was seduced by her boss' son Beck (Jared Leto); during the resulting pregnancy she became close with Glady.
Anna's daughter Marianna (Alfre Woodard) is a sophisticated free spirit who refused to commit to any man, but she carries one regret.
Finn's mother Anna (Kate Capshaw) has long been divorced, but she arrives late in the summer with a new surprise.

During the summer Finn also meets the extremely hunky Leon (Johnathon Schaech), and has to decide how much the potential long term commitment to Sam means to her.

An adaptation of the Whitney Otto book directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, How To Make An American Quilt enjoys relaxed pacing and a soulful perspective. Breathing deeply from the almost resigned stance of older women looking back, often with plenty of regret, the film offers plenty of themes and talking points. The Jane Anderson script avoids pat answers and easy resolutions; this is a compendium of several lives, women defined by their decisions as life's surprises rarely align with expectations.

The film's compilation structure is both its strength and its weakness. How To Make An American Quilt never lingers in one place for too long, as no fewer than eight stories share less than two hours of screen time. Proving that every person has a good tale to tell, Moorhouse gives equal due to each vignette, and the chapters creates and hold individual mystique.

At the same time the patchwork composition is what it is: sequential short stories told with expediency, tending to emphasize melodrama to quickly get to the point. It's not a stretch to imagine all eight stories as potential material for good full length features, but here only the headlines are on display.

The performances are uniformly good from a dream cast featuring veterans Burstyn, Bancroft, Simmons, and Nelligan, as well as poet and civil rights activist Angelou. Ryder holds her own, her relative lack of subtlety finding an understandable home as an emotive young woman a generation removed from all her companions.

Ultimately the convergent narrative is the collective wisdom that Finn will take away from her summer, and How To Make An American Quilt hits a solid target with an emphasis on the unconventional. The beauty of a quilt knitted by many hands is in its lack of coherent precision, the emotions seeping across the borders achieving imperfect perfection.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Friday 29 December 2017

Movie Review: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

A dinosaurs-on-the-loose monster movie, The Lost World: Jurassic Park offers good special effects and very little else.

Chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is hired by John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to observe and document dinosaurs in their natural habitat on the fictional Isla Nublar. Hammond created the dinosaurs on that island before moving them to the park that was the subject of the first movie. Malcolm travels with photographer Nick (Vince Vaughn) and field equipment manager Eddie (Richard Schiff) and on the island they team up with Malcolm's girlfriend behavioral paleontologist Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore).

At the same time, Hammond's nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) is taking over the business and sends his own large and heavily equipped group, including big game hunter Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) to capture some of the dinosaurs and restart the business of commercializing the animals. The two teams initially clash but eventually have to team up to survive as the dinosaurs resent the multiple intrusions on their territory.

The first sequel to 1993's Jurassic Park, The Lost World is again directed by Steven Spielberg and serves mainly to showcase the advances in technology over the four years. Good as the creatures were in the original, they are much better here, with more fluid movements and more detailed textures.

And that's as far as any enjoyment goes in The Lost World. Beyond ogling the dinosaurs, this is a fundamentally deficient film where the characters are of the immediately forgettable plastic variety, the plot, dialogue, events and set-pieces are contrived, familiar and far from scary, the action and violence is mainly bloodless, and everyone acts as stupidly as possible at every decision point in order to unleash and prolong the rampage.

The David Koepp screenplay, adapting Michael Crichton's follow-up book, does not even appear to try and create anything intelligent. The action rushes to humans idiotically unlocking the cages of pissed-off dinosaurs as quickly as possible, and then compounding the lunacy by smuggling a baby dino away from its parents and into a trailer. Then the supposedly intelligent protagonists stand around and wonder why the dinosaurs are sort of upset and wrecking the place.

And just to emphasize the prevailing asininity, how about the heavily armed guard whose job it is to protect others, except that he is always wearing headphones to enjoy his music and drown out, you know, all cries for help or the sounds of approaching prehistoric predators.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park looks gorgeous, but is otherwise a vacuous piece of cretin-dominated silliness.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Anger Management (2003)

A lukewarm comedy, Anger Management has half of a good idea and not enough creative talent to expand the concept into a film.

Emotionally scarred by the bullying he received as a child, Dave (Adam Sandler) is a meek man, taken advantage of by his boss and unwilling to display public affection towards his long-term girlfriend Linda (Marisa Tomei). Despite Dave's calm demeanour, an incident onboard a plane spirals out of control, Dave grabs a flight attendant by the arm and finds himself in court, sentenced to anger management classes.

His appointed therapist Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson), who happens to have been sitting next to Dave on that flight, has unconventional methods, and when Dave has another physical altercation with a blind man and a restaurant server resulting in a more severe sentence, Buddy takes full control of Dave's life. The therapist moves in with Dave and repeatedly pushes his buttons to try and snap him out of his docile passive-aggressive emotions.

Directed by Peter Segal, Anger Management is an attempted buddy comedy. That the career trajectories of Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler would ever meet is astounding, but unfortunately the results veer much closer to Sandler's typical output: unrefined, silly, immature and underdeveloped.

Sandler himself is actually fine, playing a man keeping his emotions in check and too sequestered in his head for his own good. The problems with Anger Management reside in an exceptionally weak script by David S. Dorfman. The story never recovers from setting the therapist Rydell totally loose on Dave's life with ridiculously unprofessional conduct, including Rydell moving into Dave's apartment and straight into his bed. The narrative crosses the line from witty to lazy early and often, and never recovers.

Which is a pity, because the film does contain the germ of a decent comedy. In better hands and with intelligent development, the challenge of overcoming excessive passiveness to get on with life carries promise. Only flashes of what could have been interesting make it into Anger Management, mainly in scenes where Dave's emotional detachment land him in as much trouble as any actual release of anger.

But otherwise Sandler fans would be much the happier, particularly as Segal has no control over Nicholson. He surrenders to his worst tendencies of overacting and scenery chewing, effectively Nicholson playing Nicholson at the lowest common denominator. Tomei is wasted in a token role, and the rest of the cast includes John Turturro, January Jones and Krista Allen as Rydell's patients, and an uncredited Heather Graham in a single scene as Dave's seductive test.

Anger Management settles down expectantly on the therapist's couch, but receives incompetent treatment.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Thursday 28 December 2017

Movie Review: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

A science fiction fantasy drama with humour and soul, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is the heartwarming story of pure friendship between a lonely boy and a marooned alien.

In a California suburb, a spacecraft carrying inquisitive and gentle extra-terrestrials arrives in a forested area for some floral exploration. But with humans closing in the aliens take off in a hurry, inadvertently leaving one member of the expedition behind. The stranded and scared visitor eventually makes contact with ten year old Elliott (Henry Thomas), a lonely boy who lives in a nearby suburb with his mom Mary (Dee Wallace), older brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and young sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore). Elliott is struggling to come to terms with his parents' divorce, and his father is absent and in Mexico with a new girlfriend.

Elliott is the only member of the family to notice unusual activity in the shed. At first startled, he patiently guides the extra-terrestrial into his room to care for it, then introduces the alien to Michael and Gertie. Elliott and the extra-terrestrial form a symbiotic bond where they share feelings and physical experiences, while. E.T. demonstrates extraordinary abilities to manipulate items, learn and communicate. With the adult world moving in and the health of both Elliott and the alien starting to deteriorate, E.T. has to find a way to call home and summon a rescue party with the help of Elliott, his siblings and their friends.

Directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison, E.T. is a family-friendly classic about love prevailing despite all barriers. Unfolding from a child's height and perspective, and with no adults in any role of consequence, this is a story of a lonely boy finding elusive friendship with a most unlikely companion. Spielberg created a creature with looks that can only be admired by its own mother, and turned the expressive alien into one of the most loved and best known characters in movie history.

In 1977's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Spielberg explored the mysterious forces that attract ordinary humans to extraterrestrials despite seemingly impossible distances and communication challenges. Close Encounters ended with the arrival of the aliens; E.T. starts with a much more modest landing, and but continues to explore the inherent kinship among beings.

Several themes course through the film. Fundamentally E.T. is about the ties that bind all living things, with children more open to perceiving the purity of love's natural power. An almost instantaneous and effortless sensory bond is forged between Elliott and E.T., and just as the alien has a life-boosting connection with nature, Elliott is compelled to free the frogs in his school science class. And with belief and togetherness all things are possible, as E.T. helps Elliott literally soar over his troubles.

Another forceful theme is the hesitancy of adults to believe in the unusual, and indeed their inability to see the obvious if it does not fit into preconceived notions. When young Gertie tries to introduce E.T. to her mom, Mary adult cannot pause long enough to notice the alien right in her kitchen. And late in the film when government-types in moonsuits (including Peter Coyote as the barely defined "keys" man) move in, they are next to useless in salvaging the situation, and just add to the the trauma of Elliott and E.T.

Spielberg weaves the concepts together in a package filled with wonder, curiosity, hope, humour, intelligence and plenty of tears activated by both sadness and triumph. He also creates images and catchphrases that are among the most well known and best loved, including the unforgettable flying bicycle across the gigantic moon and the heart wrenching quest of E.T. phone home.

The Extra-Terrestrial thrives in its home environment, but this friendship with earthlings will live in hearts and minds forever.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Back To The Future Part III (1990)

The final chapter in the time travel Back To The Future trilogy, Part III settles down to a wild west comedy adventure with a bonus romance, and conjures up a richly satisfying conclusion.

The film opens in 1955, with teenager Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) reconnecting with eccentric inventor Doc (Christopher Lloyd) after receiving a telegram sent by Doc from 1885, where he was accidentally sent by lighting at the end of Part II. Marty and Doc unearth the DeLorean time travel machine, as well as information that suggests the 1885 Doc is in imminent danger of being killed by the outlaw Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson).

Marty travels back to 1885, meets his ancestors Maggie and Seamus (Lea Thompson and Fox) and finds Doc established as a blacksmith. Doc saves the life of newly arrived teacher Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen), and they immediately fall in love. Meanwhile Mad Dog is threatening Doc's life due to a dispute over $80. With the DeLorean's fuel system damaged, Doc and Marty have to improvise a method to use steam engine power to travel back to the future, while Marty has to negate Mad Dog's threat and Doc has to decide whether to pursue an impossible love-across-time with Clara.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Part III pulls the trilogy together after the wayward Part II, and tidies up the story into a neat package. The final chapter benefits from the introduction of the series' first romantic subplot, with Doc finding his soulmate in 1885. Clara loves science and the imaginative books of Jules Verne just as much as Doc does, and she forces Doc to think, for the first time, about his own personal fate and the implications of all the time traveling on his happiness.

Another plus is Part III's focus on one time period. Just as the original invested its energy in 1955, Part III settles down in 1885, and is able to breathe deeply from the wild west origins of Hill Valley. The clock tower building is under construction, the town features the usual tensions between rough outlaw elements and settlers, and Marty adopts the name and ultimately cool persona of Clint Eastwood to navigate his way through the local conflicts. Combining steam engine technology with the DeLorean to cobble together enough speed for the requisite return to the future provides another worthy scientific challenge for Doc to overcome.

On a thematic level, Part III also resolves Marty's character arcs. The dangling threads related to his future are tied up with an evolved understanding of how to interact with lamebrained idiots, while despite all the time traveling, Doc raises Marty's awareness about the real beauty of the future.

Christopher Lloyd delivers likely his best performance in the series, and almost steals the movie entirely. His interaction with Michael J. Fox remains smooth, but Part III is more Doc's movie than Marty's. Mary Steenburgen finally provides a substantive female counterweight, while Lea Thompson has some fun opposite Fox in representing Marty's immigrant ancestors. Thomas F. Wilson spreads his wings and evolves the abrasive Biff persona to the wild west, where the boorish behaviour ironically fits better.

While the originality of the first chapter can never be matched, Back To The Future Part III provides rewarding closure to a lovable trilogy.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Wednesday 27 December 2017

Movie Review: Back To The Future Part II (1989)

The first sequel to 1985's beloved Back To The Future time travel adventure comedy, Part II offers plenty of amusing time hopping but lacks focus and suffers from middle chapter syndrome.

After returning from 1955 to 1985 at the end of the first film's events, eccentric inventor Emmett "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) immediately whisks teenager Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his girlfriend Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) off in the DeLorean time machine to 2015. Doc needs Marty to intervene and prevent Marty's son Jr. (also Fox) from getting involved in illegal activity with Biff's grandson Griff (Thomas F. Wilson plays both Biff and Griff).

Marty does prevent Jr. from getting into trouble, but in the process realizes that Marty grew up to be a weak man due to his inability to walk away from an insult. Worse still, in 2015 the elderly Biff gets his hands on an almanac covering the score of every sports event from 1950 to 2000. He steals the DeLorean, travels back in time and passes the knowledge to the young Biff. When Doc and Marty arrive back in 1985, they find a hell-on-earth created by a mega-rich and all-powerful Biff. Doc and Marty have to again travel to 1955 to prevent the almanac from falling into young Biff's hands.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Part II is more manic than cerebral. The film undoubtedly enjoys a high amount of madcap energy, and has fun imagining the future in 2015 and an alternate present in 1985, warped by Biff's evil. But this segment of the story is very much a bridge from the original episode to the trilogy's conclusion, and there is no hiding the sense of sideways drift.

Other than the imaginative portrayal of Hill Valley in 2015, the entire future-set sequence appears half-baked, leaving a lot more questions than answers as Doc and Marty quickly abandon the future and zip back first to 1985 and then 1955. The women in the story also suffer from neglect. Jennifer appears set to join the adventure before being summarily knocked-out for the duration, and mom Lorraine (Lea Thompson) is reduced to a caricature in a distasteful portrayal of the McFlys in 2015.

And the central quest to retrieve a sports almanac is fundamentally not that interesting, this chapter reduced to a classic McGuffin set-up devoid of human-centred emotion and compelling drama.

Still, there is enough adventure and imagination in the film to maintain interest, thanks in large part to Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reprising their roles and fine-tuning their unlikely duo dynamics. The gutsy teenager and wacky inventor are a formidable team, and convey a sense of problem solving ingenuity that powers over the bumpy aspects of the script.

Back To The Future Part II is a necessary elaboration, in itself an incomplete and vaguely unsatisfying work but nevertheless part of a lively journey.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Monday 25 December 2017

Movie Review: Zoolander (2001)

A sharp no holds barred satire of the fashion world, Zoolander is a wild ride through a haughty industry.

When Malaysia's newly elected President promises reforms to end cheap child labour in the garment industry, the evil barons of the fashion world are sent into a panic. Top designer Mugatu (Will Ferrell) is tasked with plotting an assassination of the President. He identifies none-too-bright top fashion model Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), who works for a model agency run by Maury Ballstein (Jerry Stiller), as the perfect sap to be unwittingly recruited as an assassin.

Unfortunately, Zoolander, despite his famous Blue Steel "look" and miniature cell phone, is plunged into a personal crisis of confidence when reporter Matilda (Christine Taylor) publishes an unflattering profile in Time magazine and then he loses his model-of-the-year crown to the much-too-cool Hansel (Owen Wilson). This does not stop Mugatu and his top henchwoman Katinka Ingabogovinanana (Milla Jovovich) from launching their plan to brainwash Zoolander and turn him into a martial arts assassin to the tune of Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Co-written and directed by Ben Stiller, Zoolander is successful at drawing good and sustained laughs out of abject stupidity. Stiller sharpens his knives and does not try to be respectful. This is an all out assault on stupid models, corrupt business owners, and laughable designers, and the film mercilessly pokes away at the parties, the prancing, and the attitudes. The only rational character in the entire movie is the reporter Matilda, and she acts as the outside observer lifting the lid on the vacuous, corrupt and exploitive underpinnings of the industry.

The highlights are many. Zoolander and Hansel engage in a walk-off duel, a melange of boxing bout and showdown at high noon judged by none other than David Bowie. The brainwashing scene featuring psychedelic Mugatu images is a classic riff on The Manchurian Candidate. And the conspiratorial contribution of hand model Prewett (David Duchovny) gives the assassination plot and the broader fictional history of the fashion industry's involvement in high profile deaths pop culture legitimacy. Stiller even finds time within the 89 minutes of running length for a "going home" sojourn to the "coal mines of New Jersey", where Stiller reconnects with his roots including dad Larry (Jon Voight).

Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell find the perfect material to complement their madcap brand of improvisation-rich comedy, and they all deliver. Stiller infuses enough naive self-doubt into the Zoolander character to make him an appealing central figure, while Hansel's effortless ability to exude chill domination is flawlessly matched to Wilson's persona.

Ferrell is liberated by wild makeup and lets loose as the out-there designer Mugatu. His launch of the homeless-inspired Derelicte line is not only a sharp jab at the fashion world's lack of ethics, but also sadly inspired by a real campaign. Zoolander spots the weaknesses in its target trade, and attacks with ferocity and a devious smile.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Ten Commandments (1956)

A religious epic, The Ten Commandments is the story of Moses recounted on an impressively massive scale.

In ancient Egypt, the Hebrews are enslaved people, used primarily for the arduous task of constructing massive monuments and new cities. The Pharaoh hears of prophecies that a newborn will grow up to lead the slaves to freedom, and orders the death of all male Hebrew babies. Slave Yochabel (Martha Scott) packs her infant son in a basket and sets him adrift on the Nile to spare him from death. He is picked up and adopted by the Pharaoh's daughter Bithiah (Nina Foch), and she names the baby Moses. Only Bithiah's servant Memnet (Judith Anderson) knows that the baby is the son of Hebrew slaves.

Moses (Charlton Heston) grows up vying with Rameses (Yul Brynner) for the right to succeed Pharoah Sethi (Cedric Hardwicke) to the throne, a prize that comes with marriage to the ambitious Nefretiri (Anne Baxter). Rameses recruits the services of Hebrew collaborator Dathan (Edward G. Robinson) to try and uncover the identity of the Deliverer who will free the slaves.

Moses is more capable and more resourceful than Rameses, and also more empathetic to the plight of the Hebrews. He demonstrates mercy to stonecutter Joshua (John Derek) and Joshua's love interest and water carrier Lilia (Debra Paget). But before Moses ascends to the throne, Memnet intervenes, forcing Moses to face his true destiny. Spared from death, he marries Bedouin shepherd's daughter Sephora (Yvonne De Carlo) before embarking on a monumental battle of wills with Rameses.

Producer and director Cecil B. DeMille's crowning achievement (and his second crack at the story after a 1923 silent version), The Ten Commandments is three hours and 40 minutes of grand storytelling, old-fashioned Hollywood at its extravagant best. The cast features a galaxy of stars, the extras in some scenes number in the thousands, the sets are numerous and impressively crafted, and the film bursts with the colours of abundant and imaginative costumes.

The popular Moses and Exodus stories are probably amalgams of people and events composed from legends, fractured oral histories and religious texts. To his credit DeMille cites several books as sources for the film, and benefits by steering away from Bible-in-pictures territory. The long story unfolds in four manageable parts: Moses' rise to prominence as a military leader, city builder and potential future Pharoah; his awakening to his true origins and acceptance of his destiny; the struggle to free the Hebrews; and finally the arduous Exodus out of Egypt and towards the new challenges beyond.

The narrative is punctuated by several memorable setpieces. The scenes of mass motion and human activity feature outstanding choreographed artistry, and DeMille always maintains a strong hold on what his cameras are capturing. The city-building, rock-making and Exodus sequences make use of extras in every corner of the VistaVision screen, conveying a profound sense of open space, ongoing industry and masses on the move.

The latter parts of the film scale some unforgettable heights. Moses and his close allies sheltering during the haunting passover night is a quiet but immensely powerful moment in the shadow of creeping horror. The pillar of fire halting an army, the extraordinary parting of the Red Sea, and the Ten Commandments being carved in stone by mystical flames are innovative visual achievements representing the era's state of the art.

And despite all the theatricality on display, The Ten Commandments generally avoids the pitfall of overstated reverence. This is a movie that tries hard to represent real people displaying naked ambition, conspiracy, sensuality, doubt, mixed emotions, and fallibilities. The script does not try to sound as if every spoken word needs to be enshrined on a hallowed wall.

A story this big needs sturdy acting shoulders to stand on, and DeMille assembled an impressive cast, with the luxurious length affording substantive screen time for several performers. Charlton Heston rises to the challenge of portraying Moses with plenty of authoritative presence, whether as a strapping young man earning his way towards the Pharoah's chair or as the grizzled prophet leading his people to freedom with supernatural winds in his sails.

Heston needed a robust foil to shine, and Yul Brynner delivers as Rameses, Moses' rival for leadership and subsequently his existential foe in the struggle to free the Hebrews. Until late in the film Brynner remains a strong presence representing the Egyptian viewpoint. Edward G. Robinson, Anne Baxter, John Derek, Nina Foch, Martha Scott, Yvonne DeCarlo, Debra Paget and Cedric Hardwicke all provide sustained and animated support, DeMille wisely introducing most of the key characters early in the story and then coming back to them repeatedly in different contexts as Moses' life evolves.

Bold and grandiose in breadth and scope, The Ten Commandments is a domineering and engrossing cinematic achievement.