The Ten Commandments

Biblical story developed in a great scale for TV , though no such as the classic Cecil B. De Mille's version. This vivid storytelling although fairly standard , follows appropriately the Moses' life , the son of a Jew slave, from birth and abandonment on a basket over river Nile, as when Pharaoh Seti ordered the killing of all newborn babies, being pick up by Egyptian princesses (Padme Lasksmi , Claire Bloom) and he's raised in the royal court, becoming a Prince of Egypt. Once grown-up Moses (Dougray Scott) embarks a supernatural mission, getting the freedom for Hebrews. Then , Moses retires to desert where meets Jethro (Omar Sharif), and marring his daughter Sefora. The stoic Moses along with his brothers Aaron (Linus Roache) and Miriam (Susan Lynch) confront Pharaoh Ramses (Paul Rhys) and his fostered brother (Naveen Andrews). Moses asks Pharaoh for liberate them but he refuses, causing the Egyptian plagues : invasion of locusts, fogs ,epidemic , water turns into blood and death of the first-born. Moses takes charge of God's people and take them from Pharaoh's punishing grip . Moses like liberator of the Jewish leads his people throughout desert battling Malaquitas , Filisteos , and with holy intervention : emerging water hitting on a rock, and dropping divine food . Finally , Moses climbs the Mount of Sinai bringing the holy tablets, meanwhile Jewish people worshipping the golden calf.

This is a monumental version for television of the book of ¨Exodus¨with impressive special effects, including the computer generator parting of the Red Sea; in spite of making by means of usual 3D C. G. , the effects still look great. The Hebrew lawgiver is well-suited and roughly played by Dougray Scott . Remainder casting play with utter conviction and hold the lengthy movie together . However , the movie , is trimming down for TV miniseries , it makes lost the really spectacular scenes on the small screen. The picture is suitable for family viewing and religious people . Other adaptations about this story are the classic mute (1923) by Cecil B. DeMille , the second handling and the greatest with a gargantuan scale (1959) played by Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter and a TV rendition (1975) by Gianfranco De Bossio with Burt Lancaster and Anthony Quayle.

The film is produced by Robert Halmi of ¨Hallmark TV¨ which has produced several movies and series about historical events and famous characters , such as : Cleopatra, Odyssey (Ulises), Hercules , Jason and the Argonauts , Joan of Arc , Lion in winter (Henry II and Leonor of Aquitania) , Prince and pauper (Henry VIII and Edward VI)..This television movie was professionally directed by Robert Dornhelm , a mini-series expert based on historic roles : Spartacus , Archduke Rudolf and Mary Vetsera , Anne Frank, War and peace and even Rudy Giuliani as Mayor of N. Y.

This was a mess. The continuity was a mess -half the actors spoke with English accents, King Herod looked like he never saw the sun, and the darkest person was Naveen Andrews who, while a fine actor, seemed out of place. Come on. Finally, out of all the great actors with tremendous voices, (James Earl Jones), the voice of God sounded like the local pizza delivery guy.

One good thing was the special effects and showing the darker side of the story. And the actors though, a little overly dramatic at times, did a pretty good job.

I haven't seen the original in a while, but will check it out this week 2 compare.

I read bad reviews of this one after the other before I saw this and I was prepared not to like this. My friend bought this for $5.00 about a year and a half ago and it became one of those DVDs that sits unwatched in storage. Being Easter Sunday and not being able to access either the 1956 version or Ben-Hur, we decided to give this a spin. I was surprised at how good this was. This was a somewhat grittier version of the story, but, as it is explained in a "making-of" documentary extra on the disc, this was the film maker's intent. The production values are excellent as is the music score. The 3-hour film is broken into two parts, thus allowing a natural "intermission". The acting is good, the direction is good and it really holds your attention so what's not to like?

The Ten Commandments (2006) Mini Series is the easily weakest attempt to adpat this story while still having some great moments.

Positives for The Ten Commandments (2006): Like the previous adaptations, this is a great story that everyone needs to watch because it is such a rich story that needs to be appreciated. There are some good performances here while also being among the weaker end of these characters. And finally, there are some great shots of the desert landscape here.

Negatives for The Ten Commandments (2006): This is a story of two halves with Part 1 being very good and Part 2 being very boring. Even with that being said, I found Part 1 to be the weakest version of this story. The pacing of this TV Mini Series is so slow which is odd to said because the runtime is almost 3-hours and The Ten Commandments (1956) runtime was almost 4-hours and that movie's pacing was significantly better than this TV Mini Series. And finally, the effects are not very good and feel like they came straight out of an Atari game.

Overall, The Ten Commandments (2006) is easily the weakest adaptation of this story that I've seen so far.

I think it's missing the point to expect this to be like DeMille's version. I wasn't crazy about part one, as it didn't seem to know what it was -- epic movie or historical drama. But part two falls more into the historical drama category. There it works much better for me.

The actual story (miracles aside) of how the Israelites became a cohesive people is one that has not often been explored. Haven't watched part two to the end, so can't say if it will disappoint. But I do find the idea of former slaves having to carve their way, battles and all, across the wilderness to be an interesting point of view.

Will say that the character development and some of the acting (in part one) left a lot to be desired. But, again, that seemed to work better in part two. I think looking at this as a story in itself, instead of comparing it to some '50's Hollywood extravaganza, is the fair approach, no matter how it turns out.