The Prince of Egypt

⭐ 8.0/10

(Originally written by Tim)

I watched this movie a million times as a kid, so revisiting it was a treat, and I found I basically still remembered every line. The thing the holds up most for me is the animation. Something about the care of the hand-drawn style is so amazing, and the minimalist backdrops help make the movie memorable. I'm no artist but watching a movie like this makes me wish I was.

The story is classic, obviously, and I enjoyed it, but I can't give it a 10 just for nostalgia. The cast is stacked, and while I might not have any glaring negatives I can't say I was riveted the whole time. Also, this movie is scary! Bloody rivers filled with baby's and crocodiles, rods turning in to snakes. And the traumatic passover night, again the minimalist style has that scene ingrained in my head.

The music is obviously great, but it didn't hold up as well as I remember, except for When You Believe, which is performed by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston in the credits. Seriously, this movie pulled in some stars. Also need to shout out the "Deliver Us" song that opens the movie, and then the epic theme plays as Moses holds up the ten commandments at the end. Instant chills, and some beautiful movie making.

I actually found the most fascinating part of this revisit to be the internet research. This was basically the first Dreamworks animated movie, and its style is so different than all its other movies. The number of artists it takes to make something like this is insane, and apparently work on Shrek was happening at the same time, but this was meant to be the flagpole movie for the brand so all the talent was here.

Not sure why I'm not rating it higher, but this movie feels like a part of my soul that I forgot about so rating it at all is pointless.