Judah Ben Hur.

    There's a book and there are also half-a-dozen screen versions, with two or three truly epic productions. I've grown up with the Charlton Heston, William Wyler spectacular and recall it as one of the all-time-great films. That wonderful scene where Jesus gives Judah some water!
    And with the release of the new 2016 version I was keen to see this latest attempt, of course the reviews are terrible, so I've tried to avoid reading them and I was worried about Jack Huston, perhaps he would make a good Jewish playboy, but how would he cope with being lashed to the galley or in a life and death chariot race at the local track? At least there's Morgan Freeman, so much experience, many defining rolls and you're convinced he's a sheik, and not just by his thobe,
    Remarkably I'm in the same Cinema in which I saw the magical 1959 screening, it was as a young boy in the mid-sixties, films would take a long time to get this far North, back in those days. I'm pleased to say the seats are more comfortable and spacious now, and I also thought it wise to forsake the 3d Ice Lolly and the three 1d Gobstoppers, as of my childhood.
    The film, well it rolls along well enough and there are a few variations here and there, but generally I felt let down, maybe it's all the digital CG which seems to be everywhere, and when you least want to see it. I would suppose the studio took a gamble with the project, thinking the 1959 movie needed, somehow updating, better cinematography perhaps. Wyler, worked on the 1925 production and no doubt had similar ideas, and when you compare these earlier two, you can see the advances in technique. Look at the 1959 & 2016 films and you are more likely to wonder, exactly why did they bother?