User Reviews

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** ¡°Prince of Egypt¡± is based on the bible story of Moses, one of the greatest prophets mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible, also found in the Torah. The Pharaoh of Egypt orders all male infants under the age of 2 to be killed, thrown into the Nile River, fearing the growing population of the slave race, the Israelites. Unable to bear having her child killed, a mother weaves a basket, places her baby in the basket and tells her young daughter, Miriam to place the basket in a stream. She hopes and prays that the baby will be safe and fortunately, the basket it found by the pharaoh¡¯s daughter, the princess. She takes the baby in, naming him Moses. Moses grows up in the palace, with his younger brother. He is always getting into trouble and seems as if he doesn't quite fit in well among the other Egyptians. After he is grown and reaching adulthood, he sees hieroglyphic writing on the walls of the palace showing the annihilation of the Israeli baby boys. He finds out that he is actually an Israelite and he leaves after being convicted as a murderer. He moves far away, marries Zipporah, and has children. Moses works as a herdsman but is called on by God. He eventually obeys, going to Egypt ordering his ¡°brother¡± who is now pharaoh, ¡°Let my people go.¡± The 10 plagues follow, and it was amusing to see the pharaoh¡¯s magicians attempting to perform the same miracles that Moses does. In the end, the Pharaoh gives up but later changes his mind and the parting of the sea occurs. This movie is a good family film, but definitely not a masterpiece. The climax was well displayed and it¡¯s a good animated film for children and their parents to watch. Since it¡¯s based on a bible story, it¡¯s plot is developed and clear. Overall, this movie gets a 7 out of 10.

I was in tears and all emotional when I watched this movie. It's not a movie only for Christian people to watch, I think this movie's for anyone and I definitely recommend it. I used a whole box of my Kleenex and my eyes were so red by the end of the movie I freaked out myself. Honestly, people should make more movies like this, because nowadays, it's all movies like where you forget what the movie is really about. And then couple of months later, you don't even remember if you watched the movie or not. I don't think that really makes sense there. But anyway this movie is really good! I've got the soundtrack and it's really really good, watch the movie !!!

It's really hard to make a good religious movie, these days. Most people have a love/hate relationship with religion. It's a sensitive topic, but this in my opinion, this movie is probably the best retelling of the Bible, Book of Exodus on film, to date. I found this movie to be accurate and faithful to the original story. Yes, they change, a few things, but all the changes work for the better. A good example is making the characters younger. I think it's a brilliant example of how you can take artistic license with the scripture and still remain true to the spirit of the source material. Yes, it still have some inaccurates, but at least, it's not mindless theology propaganda drool. I think this movie is even better than director Cecil B. Demille's 1923 & 1956's versions of the Ten Commandments. Don't get me wrong, both 1923 & 1956 versions are classic films, but Prince of Egypt commands attention. It try to do something new, with the source material with its animation musical style. It made people think about their beliefs, by showing the negative effects of the child murders, slavery, and gruesome acts, commit by God and other human beings, more. This was a bit risky. After all, this movie got banned in two countries, on the grounds that the film depicts Islamic prophets. In Prince of Egypt, we get a more human portray of God through Moses. We see, both the warm, and caring side, but also the deep anger and wrath. For a PG movie, it has a lot of cruel violence and some gore, that some parents should know about. Produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures, as their first animation full length movie, and directed by Brenda Chapman, Simon Wells and Steve Hickner; the movie tells the story of Moses (Voiced by Val Kilmer), a Hebrew prince of Egypt, that found the courage and faith to go face to face with his half-brother & pharaoh, Ramses (Voiced by Ralph Fiennes) and lead his people out of slavery. Prince of Egypt works, because it was one of the first films that focused hard on the relationship of the two leaders. You feel the pain, both of them are going through, and how much they wish they could return to what they had. This makes the drama much more interesting. Both voice actors do a great job, showing this. Val Kilmer plays Moses as an every-man, the person who fell into his leadership rather than seeking it out. Kilmer really has this sympathetic like tone. He speaks, very soften, and clear, as if a real-life monk. Ralph Fiennes voiced Moses's half-brother, Ramses was amazing. He portray Ramses as a product of his environment, a tortured soul who still loves his brother, but is under the psychological grip of his overbearing father and his duties as Pharaoh. He really has that, powerful commanding voice that you can't help, feeling intimidated when hearing. Both actors really work well, against each other. I just wish, the supporting cast was as strong as the main leads. Despite, a lot of big name actors, playing supporting characters; the film feels lackluster, in that department. Good actors like Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer and others, feel lost in the scuffle. They don't have many scenes to shine. Other actors like Martin Short & Steve Martin feels not-needed and bit annoying with their premise. The comedy seem forced, and nearly unfunny. It never really feels natural. I always though, the movie could had work better, if they cut, those scenes out. No matter what, the movie still moves in a good pace. For a 99 minutes film, you really do see the characters, change from beginning to end. The animation is very well-done. You got some of the best animators, working on this film. When former animation chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney to start DreamWorks, he took a good amount of people from the Walt Disney Feature Animation Department. When director/producer Steven Spielberg, came onboard, he also brought good animators, from his defunct division of Amblin Entertainment, the Amblimation, known for films like 1991's An American Tail: Fievel Go West & 1995's Balto. Both divisions, work very well, together. You really get the ancient epic scope, by how beautiful, the film looks. I also love, how the movie used computer animation to add, detail. A good example is the burning bush and the water sequences. The songs themselves surprisingly really help to tell the story, too. The opening song by Stephen Schwartz and composer Hans Zimmer, 'Deliver Us' was very powerful. It was so epic! Not only did it help, move the story along, but they also show what the characters are going through. You get to see this, in song sequences like 'Look through heaven's eyes', "All I Ever Wanted" & 'The Plagues'. You see, both the joy and suffering that everyone has to deal with. The worst song in the movie has to be 'Playing with the Big Boys'. I really can't stand that song, one bit. It wasn't really needed. My favorite song has to be the power ballad, 'When You Believe'. This is one beautiful song. It goes from a soft spoken beginning to outright happiness. The middle part with the children singing is just uplifting. That song won Best Original Song at the 1999 Academy Awards. Overall: This movie was a decent remake for the most part. Unlike other modern day religionist films. This movie didn't feel like a joke. It's not too preachy or clumsy. It's a pretty good watch.

As I watched the previews to this movie it became clear to me that is was about Moses and the Exodus, and because of this I became more interested in seeing it. I guess my motivation was to find out how close this movie stuck to the biblical account. Indeed it does seem to stick reasonably closely, though a few things were added to make it a little more interesting, but the added things were derived from the Bible rather than created. The major addition is that Moses was Pharoah Ramses' brother, which is quite possible considering that Moses was picked up by the queen of Egypt.

The movie is based on the Book of Exodus, the second book of the bible. The story is that the Jews have been living in Egypt and have been growing in number, according to the promise God made to Abraham. Fearing that the Jews would revolt, Pharoah ordered all baby boys executed, but Moses was put in a basket and sent down the Nile where he was picked up by the queen. Moses was brought up as a prince but realised that he was a Jew. One day, he killed an overseer that was beating a Jewish slave and fled into the desert where he found a burning bush. In this bush, God spoke to him and commanded him to return to Egypt and free his people. This Moses did, though he was quite hesitant. Pharoah refuses and God strikes Egypt with plagues. Finally, after the death of the first born, Pharoah tells the Jews to go and they flee, but after that Pharoah changes his mind and orders them stopped. By this time the Jews had reached the Red Sea which God parts for them. They cross and flee while the Egyptians following behind are drowned.

It is a pretty complicated story but so are many of the stories in the Bible. The complication serves a purpose because this story is a reflection of what Jesus did on the cross. In a way it is an analogy that God created in history. We are slaves to our sins and no matter what we do we cannot escape. God sends a deliverer, who is Jesus, to free us from slavery. God freed the Jews in Egypt from slavery by sending Moses in to lead them out to the promised land. Jesus is sent to Earth to become a human so that he might die on the cross, thus paying the penalty for the sins we have committed. The Jews followed Moses out of slavery in Egypt just as we turn to Jesus to escape the endless cycle of sin and death that dominates our lives. Those who ignore God sin and the penalty of sin is death. A very interesting thing that we see in the movie is that some Egyptians escaped with the Jews, showing us that salvation is for everybody.

In this movie we see both sides of God. Many claim that God is a vengeful God in the Old Testament, and that he is. The burning bush scene though shows us both sides of God. When Moses doubts his ability, God roars, throwing him to the ground, but then we see the fatherly side of God as he lifts Moses up onto his feet. We see the wrath of God as the mist flows through Egypt taking the life of all the first born, but we also see the mercy of God as he passes by the doors of all those who have blood on the posts. God is also shown as the protector as he raises a wall of fire before the Egyptians, allowing the Jews to flee.

I guess we cannot fully understand why God did not let the Jews escape immediately, but rather sent all of the plagues; yet I guess it follows the idea that God is not only showing his mercy to the Jews but his wrath to the Egyptians. What the Jews were witnessing during the time of the plagues is that God was not only pouring his wrath out onto the people of Egypt, but he was protecting those whom he had chosen. When we look forward to the book of Revelation, we see a repeat of plagues, though they are not exactly the same. What the plagues show us is that God will pour out his wrath upon humanity, but these plagues represent the period that we have a chance to repent of our sins. We can either take the warnings of God and turn to follow him, or we can continue to ignore God's grace and face judgment and death at the end of time.

The original bible story was quite brutal in my opinion, and I would normally not show it to kids. Oh my goodness, this installment didn't disappoint. Brutal genocidal god, portrayed as kind and generous, kills thousands of innocent children and everyone cheers. It could have been a story about abolishing slavery, it wasn't, just like in the bible. Instead only Jew slaves are saved, no mention for relieving burden for anyone else. Great, let's celebrate the death of kids.

My primary reservations with the story were that an all powerful God kills thousand of innocent children, and we are supposed to cheer. Even if you want to punish slave owners, do that (like Daenerys), don't kill their children. But the got goes beyond that, not only do slavers' kids die, but also everyone else's. Only a tiny fraction of Egyptian society owned slaves, most slaves were owned by "government" (read Pharaoh). >99% were regular people workers, farmers and so on. Also we shouldn't forget that most slaves were probably not Jewish, rather from other religions. Non-Jewish slaves suffer pretty bad, they'd think it couldn't get any worse. Then surprise: all your children are dead.