Alright folks, here's a review to bring the anticipation down a few notches. Someone that says, "So What" Well, what do I know about this spy? Well he/she/it is a huge animation fan, and knows his/her/it's stuff. There was a 3 paragraph introduction, and... well the person is a known entity, that wishes to be 'unknown'. In advance and for the fairness of the way things are, I strongly disagree. First off, I love the character designs and I don't think they are 'ugly'. Secondly, the one thing I saw in this Moses, that I didn't see in the Heston "Moses," are flaws... human doubts, loves, emotions. And, as for the reason to animate this story... Because they chose to film it this way. That would be like complaining about a live action CINDERELLA, because... well it'd be better told animated. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was best told by Cocteau, not Disney.. at least for me. Anyway, here's Tytlamaniac's review.
"TYTLAMANIAC":
Well, Harry, I'm sorry to say that I'm a nay sayer on Prince of Egypt. In a screening in early fall I was as anxious as anyone to see the great promise of the animation world. It simply wasn't there. And I was not alone in this opinion. I was a guest of the studio, and grateful for the chance to see something that could change the face of the industry.
We all arrived at the new DreamWorks Animation studio over by Disney's Imagineering "corridor" in Glendale. They first had a very perky and pleasant "ambassador" show us around the "campus" (which I knew already from work I had done there earlier) and show us a gallery of preproduction story paintings, storyboards, concept drawings, layouts, color stylings, etc. All very beautiful, very powerful. I have to admit, however, that right from the start - several months earlier - once I saw the final "clean-up" character designs I found them very unattractive. I thought they were awkward, and difficult to look at. I figured that I had to give these characters a chance to move in order to judge them fairly. So, here it was, my chance to see something other than computer print outs and composites created for publicity. Here was the product. Well, Harry, my response is "So what?"
First, the one thing that I DO think raises the bar. The depth of field on this film is spectacular. The camera seems to go on forever. The CGI software developed for crowd scenes has a feature that informs characters to walk around rocks, descend stairs, random behavior in gate, etc. that exceeds anything I've seen before. The result is that it is an almost - emphasis on the almost - seamless blend of traditional hand drawn and cgi animation.
And I'll go one better and talk first about the stuff that is impressive (Though none of it singularly more impressive than anything else of equal power in any other animated film of the past ten years) The concept and realization of the parting of the Red Sea is awesome. SPOILER ALERT: there is a passage where the Hebrews are traveling along the sea bed with a wall of water on either side and a whale passes along side, as if behind some monolithic curtain of blue and green mist. It creates a very nice atmospheric moment.
The chariot race between Moses and Ramses which starts the film is edited crisply and expertly and is among the best "chace" or "action" sequences of any film.
Finally, there is a dream-sequence SPOILER ALERT where Moses has a nightmare that reveals his birth as a slave and his "father"'s murder of Hebrew children. He wakes from the nightmare and runs into the temple, with only a torch to light his way, to see the paintings that chronicle the awful truth. The dream, and subsequent reveal in waking time are powerful and dramatic. BUT, and herein are my central problems with the film, save this moment for Moses, the depth of emotion and honest, interesting characterization is shallow, weak, and framed in careless animation that is not tight, often strobes, and is encased in very ugly character designs that move awkwardly and appear flat against artistic beauty in the picture's overall production design.
I just don't care about this Moses.
The reverence for the subject reveals a serious flaw in almost any film based on scripture or liturgy - i.e. - Scripture and Liturgy are rhetorical and by nature instructive, they are not dramatic. Period. Try as the producers have to make these characters deeply complicated, emotionally and psychologically interesting, they fail. Moses is without flaw. Snooze. Ramses is just a badly animated counterbalance to Moses's perfection. A lot of ankst is strewn about the screen, but there is not a single moment of powerful animation phrasing, or moving graphic magic that brings to life a character no live actor could ever realize. Ramses' most dramatic moment makes him look like a badly drawn Nora Desmond mourning over her dead monkey. It's just ugly. Miriam looks like an escapee from anime-land, and the Hans Zimmer score overpowers the film. The music reaches for emotional heights the film can't even see, let alone attain. And finally, why invest the talent of gifted people like Duncan Marjoribanks, Brenda Chapman, James Baxter, etc. to create an animated version of something that might just as well be done in live action? Animation is a special tool. It should be used to tell stories that only animation can tell, not just to draw beautiful pictures and special effects that are better in animation than on traditional live film. Where is the magic? What envelope has been pushed here other than to prove that animation can be used to tell the same stories that live action can tell? O.K., we get it. Big whoop. But quite frankly, Beauty and the Beast proved that, and then went one step beyond and gave us characters that only animation could realize and render. Dear God, Cats Don't Dance was a superior film to this. Far superior. And is it just me, or is Prince of Egypt just a tad too close to the story of Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner? It sure feels that way.
Sorry, Harry. I'm not convinced DreamWorks is so special. They've got a lot of talent that is simply being put through the usual paces here to make a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Nothing. Send the visual development art on tour. Send the clips of the nine minutes of powerful animation on tour. Spare us the rest. Ultimately, Prince of Egypt is nothing more than an attempt to be taken seriously by hiding behind Old Testament liturgical grandeur. It can't mask what is sadly lame animation that is more tableau vivant than vibrant film art. The power is minimal, the magic is amateurish. The time is yet to come.
