Judah Ben-Hur Actor. Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster and Rock Hudson turned down the role before Heston accepted it. In this version Ben-Hur becomes a Christian at the Crucifixion of Christ; whereas in the book Ben-Hur becomes a Christian earlier. Ben-Hur is given a more somewhat bitter personality; Balthazar, one of the three wise men having witnessed the birth of Christ begs him to listen to the teachings of Jesus but Judah rebuffs him saying that he has business with Rome. Blaming Rome for destroying the once good Messala (prior to his corruption) and what has happened to his family Judah refuses to
Ben-Hur (2016 film) wrote, "Overseen by a director not known for his human touch and lacking a name star, except for Mr. Freeman, "Ben-Hur" feels like a film made on the cheap, although it looks costly." Richard Roeper gave the film two stars out of four, writing: ""Ben-Hur" struggles to find an identity and never really gets there. The well-intentioned efforts to achieve moving, faith-based awakenings are undercut by the casually violent, PG-13 action sequences." "The Hollywood Reporter"s Todd McCarthy described the film's chariot race scene as being "heavily digitized and over-edited", and called it the worst scene of the film he described