Moses Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Moses Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 6, 2017

Note: This film is available as part of the box set The Bible Stories Collection.

That oft quoted adage “the book was better” might never be more appropriate than in adaptations culled from the Bible. How can mere mortals hope to compete with what many believe is a Divinely inspired collection of writings? That of course hasn’t stopped a lot of mere mortals from trying, and Biblical stories have been a staple of first film and, later, television outings virtually from the time these media were invented. While the big screen Biblical epics of the 1950s and 1960s were often kind of silly ( David and Bathsheba), or alternatively overly reverential and therefore kind of stodgy (The Greatest Story Ever Told), they typically (though not always) brought audiences in to delight not just in the pomp and circumstance, but also perhaps to blandish any qualms of conscience that not going to church and/or shul “religiously” (so to speak) may have engendered. One of the more interesting films to come out of this adaptive fervor was the 1966 effort The Bible: In the Beginning..., a John Huston directed effort which presented several iconic tales from Genesis and which was initially planned as just the first installment for a whole series of Biblically oriented tales culled directly from scripture. Its failure at the box office put the kibosh on that plan, but several decades later, a similar plan was put into production, albeit on a much smaller scale, with a series of made for television films (many marketed as miniseries despite not being all that lengthy) that offered various Bible tales, usually with at least one marquee star attached. Many of the made for television entries included in this set were part of a series which ran on various Ted Turner owned networks starting in the 1990s, and some at least have long been favorites of those who like their Biblical adaptations on the more intimate and less epic side of things.

While some of the tales of the first few miniseries and/or made for television movies in the Bible Stories collection get at least a passing reference in the feature film The Bible: In the Beginning..., Moses is the first production where there’s a direct big screen parallel to much, maybe even most, of the story it offers. That spectacle is of course the famous Cecil B. de Mille epic The Ten Commandments, a film which in many ways absolutely defines the Biblical epic movie of its era. Moses offers many of the same vignettes as The Ten Commandments, albeit on what was evidently a much smaller budget, leading to some occasionally hokey if at least acceptably believable special effects. The biggest difference in the two treatments is probably the performances of Charlton Heston and Sir Ben Kingsley as Moses. While there are some overt differentiations, including Kingsley making at least occasional use of the folklore that Moses was a stutterer, there’s a curious if perhaps psychologically astute vulnerability to Kingsley’s portrayal that is more or less absent from Heston’s take on this iconic religious leader.

If the de Mille film focused on pageantry and big screen splendor, this Moses does what it can with occasional trips to the SFX well while tending to spend more time on more realistic portrayals of the interrelationships between Moses and both his adoptive kin in Pharoah’s household as well as the family he later forges. Despite a really unfortunate wig and “Egyptian” makeup in scenes documenting Moses’ relative youth, Kingsley does a believable job portraying the insecurities that must have surrounded Moses, the “outsider” who of course becomes the paradigmatic insider. Frank Langella as Merneptah, Moses’ childhood “brother” who later becomes his nemesis, chews the scenery fairly vigorously but provides a suitably villainous foil for the heroic if troubled Moses. Trivia lovers may enjoy the fact that two performers associated with Agatha Christie are on hand in this miniseries. David Suchet, of course probably the most inimitable Poirot of all time (or at least most of our lifetimes) is on hand as Aaron, and Geraldine McEwan, one of several actresses to essay the role of the unassuming sleuth Miss Marple, is featured as Miriam.

While the parting of the Red Sea can’t really compete with The Ten Commandments’ version (as “archaic” as even those special effects look to those more accustomed to CGI these days), some of the other moments are quite effective, especially Moses’ interchange with the Divine at the burning bush. The burning bush itself is quite effective (and large!), and the transformation of Moses’ staff into a snake is as convincing as in the big screen version.

But this miniseries really excels at offering a more naturalistic and less theatrical take on the characters than de Mille’s often pretty hammy effort (there’s nothing equivalent to the wonderful Anne Baxter’s inimitable “Oh, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!” here). As I mentioned in the Joseph Blu-ray review, this effort, along with Joseph, offers one of the more sumptuous physical productions in the Bible Stories series, with the understanding that most of these offerings were done on budgets that big screen epics would have considered to be laughably inadequate.

Moses Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

All of the films in The Bible Stories Collection are presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.78:1. While most (perhaps all) of these efforts were broadcast in the United States in 1.33:1, it looks from scouring through the IMDb that many (perhaps all) of them did in fact have theatrical releases in various foreign markets, meaning they were most likely all shot with "safeties" and/or "shoot and protect" regimens in mind. That said, those who have seen the 1.33:1 versions which were released on videotape and DVD will no doubt notice quite a few "tighter" framings, framings which often tend to lop the tops or bottoms off of heads and/or faces, at least intermittently.

Moses follows pretty resolutely in the same general quality footsteps of Abraham and Joseph, with a transfer that to my eyes shows some signs of noise reduction (oddly here in darker scenes more than light, where grain can at least be intermittently discerned against bright blue skies). That said, detail levels in close-ups still are decent and under the right lighting conditions actually quite good. This master has a few more (minor) nicks (and even an occasional hair) than the others, but nothing that's overly distracting. The palette looks a good deal more natural and less brownish than the one I described in Joseph. Some of the special effects aren't especially overwhelming and old style compositing shows its seams at times.

Moses Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While Moses' DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix provides decent if intermittent surround activity courtesy of its nice score and many crowd scenes, I have to say the biggest thing that stuck out to me is how sonically reserved the whole parting the Red Sea sequence is in this version. What should be an cacophony of sound effects is weirdly muted, not helped especially by a choral cue that overwhelms the sounds of the sea. That said, a lot of the outdoor scenes have at least occasional placement of ambient environmental sounds in the surround channels, but as with most of the other films in this set, the dialogue remains front and center. Once again a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix is included as an option.

Moses Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There is no supplementary material of any kind on this Blu-ray disc.

Moses Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

To my personal tastes, Moses is one of the better films in the Bible Stories collection. The teleplay does a good job of creating an intimate ambience and Kingsley is extremely effective in the role, despite a probably unconscious tendency on the part of many viewers to compare him to Charlton Heston. Kingsley's Moses is in fact less of the resolute hero that Heston's version was, something that actually humanizes the character to a nice degree. Recommended.