The Prince of Egypt (1998)

The Prince of Egypt is an animated musical version of the story of Moses. I know that may sound a bit strange. To start, it’s not fair to compare it with the more famous Cecil B. DeMille version The Ten Commandments because it’s not trying to be a remake of that film. This version is its own separate telling of the story and it's actually pretty good. The story, though most people probably know it by now, starts with baby Moses (who grows up to be voiced by Val Kilmer) being put in a basket by his mother to save him from the Egyptians massacring newborns in order to control their slave population. After surviving an incredibly rough river ride (the basket is the target of hippos and crocodiles alike), he ends up in the care of the Pharaoh’s wife (voiced by Helen Mirren) and becomes a prince because they decide that this was one newborn slave that they could keep alive. As with the way most kids in film who find out their adopted seem to react, Moses goes through a bit of an identity crisis thinking his whole life is a lie and so forth. He runs away, becomes a shepherd, meets a talking plant, causes plagues, gets the Pharaoh to let his people go, etc.

It’s a famous story and the film takes it more seriously than I'm willing to give time in summarizing. In fact, they take it so seriously that the entire cast is made up of stars. Rameses is voiced by Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer voices Moses’ wife Tzipporah, Sandra Bullock is Moses’ sister, Jeff Goldblum is her husband, Patrick Stewart is the Pharaoh, and Steve Martin and Martin Short voice the two priests. The voice acting is good all across the board, but Ralph Fiennes is particularly memorable as Rameses. He never feels like a true villain, and the story places a lot of emphasis on the sibling rivalry and relationship between him and Moses. This makes the characters feel more human and adds a lot of depth to the story. Moses spends most of his life as an Egyptian so the conflict he feels within himself as he basically destroys his old home seems genuine. A lot of these feelings are expressed through song, so luckily there is some good music here featuring songs like “When you Believe” which is the one that Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey sang together with the idea that it win best original song at the Oscars. The score is by Hans Zimmer and it feels like it matches the settings with its obvious middle-eastern/desert style and instrumental accompaniment.

Because this film is animated, and it uses lots of CG seamlessly blended in with the 2-D characters, everything is huge (after all, it took three directors to make this film). The buildings, the statues, the canyons, and the parting of the sea are all massive spectacles showing how much can be done when not relying on sets and human actors. It all fits well into the story and makes for some pretty memorable visuals. One aspect that I personally enjoyed about this film was its own seriousness towards the story. There were no characters inserted into the film intended to be comic relief for kids. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is another animated film that is much more serious than most, but the addition of the cute animal (or gargoyle) friends did not fit well into the tone of the story. They clashed with characters like Frollo who is relentlessly adult in that film. In The Prince of Egypt, there are no such characters and this makes the film a genuine reminder that just because it is a cartoon, that doesn’t mean that it needs to be targeted exclusively towards kids.