A good movie

I already saw this movie in the movie theatre when it was released but since it was a while back and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out again. In fact, I remember it very well, before this movie was released, there was quite some buzz about it. Indeed, back in those days, Disney was pretty much ruling the animation world without any real competition and the brand-new studio DreamWorks had decided to become their new challenger which was definitely a risky move. Eventually, even though they would make a name with their CGI animated features, most of their first productions were actually hand-drawn and, even more interesting, one of their very first project was actually definitely adult-oriented which was really a bold move considering that most animated features were and still are focusing on kids. That was really intriguing and an obvious move to take some distance from Disney’s trademarks. I think it also had to do with the fact that Disney had already pretty much covered all the most famous tales (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Tarzan,…) and the only real famous tales left over were from the biblical kind, a genre Disney has always kept its distance from for some rather obvious reasons. Still, you can feel that the whole thing was quite experimental and the tone was rather uneven with some superfluous songs and lighter scenes to make sure that the parents could still bring their kids along. I still think it’s a real shame that DreamWorks eventually didn’t continue in this direction and they actually never made something like that again. Anyway, even though I’m not a religious man, the story was actually quite entertaining and some bits were even downright spectacular but, above all, I especially did appreciate the intense love-hate relationship between Moses and Rameses. The animation was also quite gorgeous. To conclude, even though it was not a masterpiece, it was still the best hand-drawn animated feature produced by DreamWorks and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.