The Prince of Egypt

When DreamWorks was still new, still hadn’t figured out their unique animation identity and only had one movie under its belt with Antz (which already wasn’t a commercial success) they upped their anti by diving into biblical stories, mainly the story of Moses from The Book of Exodus, which had already been told cinematically through the realistic lens before by The Ten Commandments. The 1956 film was one of the game changers in modern cinema, leaving audiences highly impressed with its excellent acting, booming presence and scale, and amazing effects for the time, so it’s hard to imagine what was going through the heads of those at DreamWorks when they decided to make an animated musical version of this highly adult and even disturbing story in a way that children could watch and even understand through song sequences, comedic moments and recognizable actors, but the even stranger thing is that not only does it work, it works phenomenally and created something that might even be better than those that came before it. Set during the time of the creation of the Pyramids, a young Hebrew baby is washed away by his family to save him from the slaughter of their people ordered by the Pharaoh (voiced by Patrick Stewart) but is ironically found and taken in by the Pharaoh himself. The boy grows up to become Moses (voiced by Val Kilmer), the Prince of Egypt, but decides to run away when he discovers the crimes of the father, which involves leaving behind his beloved brother, Rameses (voiced by Ralph Fiennes). Leaving behind his old life and beginning again in a desert plain with his new wife Tzipporah (voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer), Moses is forced to return to Egypt when God literally contacts him and tells him to free the slaves. Returning after many years, Moses discovers that Rameses has become the Pharaoh and though he still loves his brother, pressures from his late father keep him from hearing his brother’s plea and he refuses to let the Hebrews go. A sibling rivalry of the harshest kind, the two continue to clash all in an effort to free those who have been enslaved for too long and Moses is willing to use all of God’s powers to see that it gets done. This could be a concept that could so easily fail; a musical kid-friendly version of one of the most famous stories of biblical history sounds like a horrible idea and could be easily thrown into the dumpster fire of cash-in ideas. However, with amazing talent, passion and clear understanding of the story, The Prince of Egypt is a remarkably acted, beautifully crafted, expertly told movie with great songs, enough changes to stand out from the original movie, and a great dive into a fantastic story which can be understood and appreciated by younger audiences.

The story is incredibly well-known, and The Ten Commandments is equally as beloved, visually representing the story with such a scale and respect at the time was jaw-dropping and still a visual spectacle to this day. Making a version fit for children would be incredibly difficult, and some of the film’s issues are connected to that issue. The tone is very muddled, and the two sides don’t balance out very well. It’s hard to go from song numbers and occasional cartoonish looking and moving animated creations, to the slaughtering of children and the torture of slaves, it was never going to be an easy situation. The comedy of the movie as a whole is pretty bad from the perspective of resulting in a laugh; it’s understandable that the film needs some form of levity with the amount of harshness it throws out, but most of the content is not well handled, it never once gets a laugh. With that said, the actual story is beautifully told and captures the impact of the original epic whilst still feeling remarkably distinct. This film’s script written by Phillip LaZebnik is fantastically written, containing all the familiar nods from the biblical tale while still interlocking it with an emotional core at its centre to really draw people in. The focus is on the relationship between the two brothers, which leads to easy drama that is simple, but powerfully told and borders on Shakespearean in moments with how beautifully tragic the entire situations is. The emotions are clearly show, the turmoil is always addressed and planned out, so it feels warranted, and every moment is made more impactful because the relationship between the two is developed very nicely and seeing it crumble is incredibly sad, but understandable. The three directors responsible for this film; Steve Hickner, Simon Wells and Brenda Chapman (the first woman to ever direct a feature-length animated movie), are extremely talented people able to construct what is a highly complex and darkly disturbed story and present it in a manner that is approachable and even comprehensible to children, yet doesn’t sacrifice the enormous weight and even gruesome aspects of the tale, its expertly paced, delivered, acted, composed, shot, everything is led in such a perfect manner and even elements that don’t work like the weak comedy and even slightly muddled opening act, are still used in great contrast with how they are played out later in the film. It captures the grand scale and operatic appeal of the original story and movie yet has the complex relationships and back-and-forth dialogue scenes of any great complex piece of art.

The characters are mostly the same as the ones from The Ten Commandments, but some have been removed and some are given much bigger roles. Most of the changes do help to flesh out the story and even though there are some elements that probably would’ve been fantastic to see within this specific story and handling (mainly Rameses’ wife who has one of the most complex characters in the original movie already), but it feels like every character in this movie is handled exactly how they need to be. The relationship between Moses and Rameses is fleshed out a lot more and leads to some of the best scenes in the movie. His relationship with his wife is also a lot stronger too, and even though the romance is a tad bit rushed, the genuine chemistry the two share later in the film does make it okay in the long run. Moses as a character is the typical every-man who would eventually be the savior of his people, while slightly generic and less commanding and leader-like than his live-action counterpart, he still really works in the role and seeing his change from arrogant prince to messiah with extreme responsibility is pretty effective. Rameses as the villain is amazing; seeing him grow from the brother of the main character to the vengeful villain doesn’t feel out of nowhere, he’s given much more complexities and sympathy than his counterpart who was mainly a slimy villain people loved to hate, and Ralph Fiennes is chilling as the voice. He has all the workings of a Shakespearean villain; someone with fear and respect, but also understanding and sympathy, he’s an absolutely perfect villainous foil for this kind of film and can still be seen as one of the greatest animated villain’s period. The rest of the characters are helped by the movie’s phenomenal cast. Much like Ten Commandments, the cast of this movie is huge on star power and features a lot of familiar names: Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Stewart, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Helen Mirren, Danny Glover, all very popular actors and each chosen very effectively for each part. Steve Martin and Martin Short as the two high priest can be pretty annoying at times due to the poor comedy, but they are a good choice for an antagonistic duo and they get one heck of a great villain song, and Sandra Bullock and Jeff Goldblum as Moses’ real family gets some good moments too (despite sounding a little like typecasting, they don’t come across as distracting).

Even though the movie being animated could have come across as a way to make it more child-friendly, it was actually a benefit and a great tool in order to tell its story. Like great animation does, it visually tells its story through strong visuals, important metaphors, and amazing shots of beauty. It has some truly breathtaking scenery and some amazing angles and lighting moments. It’s able to elevate its scale even higher with how many grand shots it can get and how massive it can make an object or environment feel. The colors are so strong and have a strange emotional emphasis about them, the movie uses it colors very effectively in capturing the emotions of each scene, with intense reds and yellows, to smooth and calming whites and blues. Sometimes a character can look a bit odd with the designs and even some of the animals have a bit too much of a cartoony presence to the way they are animated to look, but most of the main characters have very nice designs and really strong facial expressions. Much like using its animation effectively, the film’s music is equally as important in making this movie as strong as it is. It turns the story into a musical, but even that works out fantastically. The visuals are heightened in each musical segment and the score by Hans Zimmer is another one of his masterpieces, each pieces of musical melody are spectacular. The songs themselves written by Stephen Schwartz are also outstanding and even though they might seem to be out of place in this story, they are wonderfully composed and constructed in a manner that move the story forward like a traditional musical should yet contain the impactful weight and epicness of an opera. Each one has its own varying purpose and sound, they are sung fantastically, the visual are equally upped whenever they are featured, and each one is incredibly memorable. The song, The Plagues, in particular is worthy of high praise from the instrumentals, the intense visuals, the building suspense, the voice talent, and how it acts as the turning point for the movie both in tone and in its narrative, it’s one of the film’s best moments.

The Prince of Egypt is just as good as the live-action version of the Moses tale, maybe even a little better. While meant to entertain a broader spectrum of people and appeal to younger audiences, it captures the same morals, lessons and hardships of the biblical tale and represents it with care and respect. It’s not a movie that is beloved by all as the film wasn’t well received to begin with and earned a cult following afterwards, but it deserves to be recognized nowadays as the underground gem that took a big risk for a hatchling studio and created arguably one of the greatest hand-drawn animated movies ever made. The story is well told and structured like a Shakespearean drama, the characters are good, the cast is wonderful, the visuals are spectacular, the music is amazing, and it’s a memorable timeless version of the story. The movie isn’t really for younger children as the visuals and subject matter may be too intense for them, but for anyone older, it’s definitely worth a watch. View this movie with open eyes and witness all of its wonders.