The Prince of Egypt (1998) Review

 The Prince of Egypt (1998) 8/10

“Let my people go!”

Hello everyone. Today, I’ll be reviewing another movie. Today’s movie is The Prince of Egypt. Prince of Egypt was originally released on December 18, 1998 with Dreamworks being the animation studio behind it. The movie was directed by Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells. Now, I have seen this movie plenty of times in the past, but I had the sudden urge to rewatch it today. This movie is something else. It is something special that you don’t see a lot of times in cinema and this movie is special to me. Not many of you know, but I am fairly religious, with me being a believer of God and a fellow Christian. I just don’t like to bring this up because it causes fights and bullshit in the comments and I don’t want to deal with that. With that said, I will be a little bit biased towards this cause this was one of my favorite movies growing up. Let’s begin.

This movie is an adaptation of the Book of Exodus from the Old Testament of the Bible (at least the first part of it). If you don’t know this story, allow me to fill you in. This movie follows two brothers Rameses and Moses. Ramses is pure Egyptian and is the prince of Egypt, with his father being Pharaoh. Moses is an adopted child who is Hebrew. After he discovers his true heritage, he leaves his life of royalty and becomes a follower of God. Moses eventually returns to Egypt to have his people freed from Egyptian slavery. By the time he returns, Rameses is the new Pharaoh and he refuses to let the Hebrew people go due to family traditions. Due to his stubbornness, Moses then unleashes the wrath of God on the Egyptian people. Eventually after losing his son to God’s last plague, Rameses lets them go. As they are traveling, the newly freed Hebrews reach the Red Sea and Rameses goes after them for revenge. Moses, through the power of God, splits the Red Sea to allow everyone to escape to the other side. As they are being chased through the sea, God closes the sea, destroying Rameses’ army. The movie ends with Moses descending from the mountain with the Ten Commandments.

I love this story. What I love about this movie’s rendition of the story is that it seems to be more focused on Moses’ brotherly relationship with Rameses. I love that the movie’s main focus is this relationship while also not neglecting the rest of this tale. I do wish the movie went into more detail with the plagues God unleashed instead of a montage of what happened. There are a number of side characters, but that’s all they are: side characters. The main focus of the cast is Moses and Rameses.

There is one scene in the movie I want to go over. So about 25% through the movie, Moses discovers his Hebrew heritage. He goes to where Rameses is rebuilding a temple that the two destroyed earlier. On his way to see his brother, Moses opens his eyes and sees the atrocities that are happening to his people. The movie puts a heavy emphasis on these people’s suffering and it is done really well. So well in fact that I felt somewhat uncomfortable watching this, which is very difficult for me to feel this way, especially in a “kids” movie. You can feel these slaves’ pain and agony as they are being whipped and worked to death and the way Moses reacts to all of this happening was well executed.

Production value for the movie is actually pretty good. The movie looks great and very unique, even compared to Dreamworks’ other 2D animated movies. The character designs, art style, backgrounds, and symbolic scenes and moments all looked great. God I miss western 2D animation. Speaking of animation, the animation was very smooth. I didn’t see any animation errors or other hiccups, which is great.

The music for the movie is easily one of the movie’s strong points. Directed by Hans Zimmer, the score for the movie is very unique. The movie is also a musical. Did I forget to mention that? There’s a handful of songs here that the cast will sing. All of the songs are good with great direction, except the final song called “When You Believe.” I didn’t care for this song, which is a shame because it’s the last song in the movie. My favorites are “All I Ever Wanted”, “Through Heaven’s Eyes”, and “Playing With The Big Boys”. “The Plagues” is pretty solid too, but not a favorite. Also, why the hell are Boys II Men in the credits song? Like what the fuck. You have these really great songs that fit the mood and tone of the movie perfectly and then out of fucking no where a boy band. This was completely unnecessary and I have to deduct points because of this lmao.

The voice cast is surprisingly awesome. A lot of famous celebrities were part of this. Michelle Pfeifer (Tzipporah, Moses’ wife), Sandra Bullock (Miriam, Moses’ sister), Jeff Goldblum (Aaron, Moses’ other brother), Danny Glover (Jethro, head of Meridian village), Patrick Stewart (Rameses’ father, and Hotep and Huy voiced by Steve Martin and Martin Short. Also, I find it hilarious that the guy that voices Moses and God is named Val Kilmer, but is not the actor that played Batman and Vulture lmao. The dude just has the same name. Val Kilmer (Moses) and Ralph Fiennes (Rameses) were really great.

Anyway, I really enjoyed revisiting this classic. Even if you aren’t religious, I still recommend this movie. It’s a genuinely great movie and even a good history movie (it’s slightly inaccurate, but that’s okay). Great story, great message, great visuals, great music, and great voice cast. This will forever be one of my favorite movies, even though it can be a bit better.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.