CinemaSerf (November 5, 2023)

I only watched this because I thought the poster looked a bit like the cover of a Christian Jacq novel. Sadly, despite a pretty stellar cast on paper, this is a really lacklustre biblical tale that is epic only in it's failure to catch fire at any stage. Peter O'Toole makes the briefest possible appearance as the prophet Samuel discovering that a captured Jewish girl has escaped and that she is with child... Spool on several years and we discover that she had a child, and that King Xerxes of Persia is looking for a new bride. Might history be about to tie these two themes together? Well what do you think? It's a strong biblical story this - you might recall Joan Collins did a version in 1960 with Richard Egan - but this is all style over substance with way too much emphasis on the grand look of the film and nowhere near enough effort on the shocking casting of Luke Goss (Xerxes) and the underwhelming Tiffany Dupont as the girl destined to secure the future of her people. Perhaps Omar Sharif was taking a break from the poker table, but there can be little excuse for the hammy effort of an over-the-top John Rhys-Davies nor the one-gear only John Noble as this story develops, completely devoid of passion or pace. The screenplay seems determined to use an adaptation from a children's book of (verbose) bible stories and in the end it all just fails to deliver. It ends with a power balled "...One night with a king... changes everything..." Even Bros didn't stoop to rhymes quite that complicated. Enough said!