Back home

The Prince of Egypt

4175 votes

Producing House

The strong bond between two brothers is challenged when their chosen responsibilities set them at odds, with extraordinary consequences.

movie

Status: Released

Released Date: 1998-12-16

Runtime: 99 mins

Director: Steve Hickner, Brenda Chapman, Simon Wells

Writer: Philip LaZebnik

Spoken language: עִבְרִית, English

Genres: Adventure, Animation, Drama, Family

Original title: The Prince of Egypt

Production Companies: DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks Animation

Production Countries: United States of America

Reviews

G

Geronimo1967
So if you’ve seen Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner have at it in Cecil B. DeMille’s epic from 1956, then you’ll have a rough idea of what this is about. Rameses is heir to the Pharaoh Seti but is usually just getting himself involved in some mischief with his half-brother Moses. The pair are as thick as thieves, but the King knows that his son has to mature if he is to wear the two crowns, so gives him a regency and more responsibility. The first thing he does with that is to appoint his brother chief architect and with a city to build, that gives Moses a chance to get out amidst the slaves who makes the bricks. That’s when he gets quite a shock that rocks him and his brother to the core. Aware, now, of his true provenance he must lead his newfound people to safety - and that is not a plan the now new Pharaoh can support. With these hitherto loving siblings now at loggerheads it is up to the conflicted Moses to cross the Red Sea. Now not wishing to get all philosophical here, but it did strike me as rather odd that a culture that built the pyramids and the great city of Thebes should somehow have been expected to surrender it’s workforce to a glorified goatherd whose God was every bit as brutal and ruthless as those of the society they wished to leave. Let my people go or I shall murder every one of your first born infant sons! Hmmm, sound fair to you? I don’t recall anything from Horus, or Isis, or Ra espousing the routine slaughtering of innocent children if they didn’t get their way - and all the Hewbrews were being offered instead were some goats, tents and a very long trek through an arid desert so they could build another temple! Anyway, for Moses and his folks this relocation offer proves way more attractive than treading straw into mud so off they set and as per the biblical Exodus, the story unfolds. Where this does differ from the earlier Hollywood iteration is that it suggests way more of a struggle from Ramses and Moses to see a parting of the ways. It shows us a genuine affection between these two men as they must each reconcile with their diverging fates. Some of the dialogue did remind me of “Braveheart” (1995) but that didn’t have Hans Zimmer and Stephen Schwartz writing the tunes - including the power ballad “When You Believe” from the combined dulcets of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston! The quality of the animation is a little two-dimensional, but there are plenty of emotive facial expressions and the action sequences towards the end are impressive. Bible purists might notice a few abridgements but it’s none the worst for simplifying a characterful story - and with some style, too.
2025-09-04

Recommendations

Mindy
0

Mindy

2004-10-09

Beautifully melancholy and heartwarming, 'Mindy' is an award-winning short film about how the smalle

Tiffin
0.5

Tiffin

2007-10-01

Shanti is born into the life of a maid for a lonely grandmother, Nai Nai, who runs a tiffin food del

Infectious
0

Infectious

2009-02-01

A lonely nurse develops an unexpected passion for her unconscious patient in a 1930s tuberculosis sa

Chicken Little
3

Chicken Little

2005-11-04

When the sky really is falling and sanity has flown the coop, who will rise to save the day? Togethe

The Great Mouse Detective
3.5

The Great Mouse Detective

1986-07-02

When the diabolical Professor Ratigan kidnaps London's master toymaker, the brilliant master of disg

Turn It Up
2.4

Turn It Up

2000-09-06

Trying to bootstrap his way out of Brooklyn's mean streets is Diamond, a rap musician. With his long

Brother Bear
3.6

Brother Bear

2003-10-23

When an impulsive boy named Kenai is magically transformed into a bear, he must literally walk in an

Peggy Sue Got Married
3

Peggy Sue Got Married

1986-10-10

At her 25th high school reunion, Peggy Sue faints and awakens in 1960—back in her senior year, befor

Beauty and the Beast
3.9

Beauty and the Beast

1991-10-22

Follow the adventures of Belle, a bright young woman who finds herself in the castle of a prince who

Avenue Montaigne
3

Avenue Montaigne

2006-02-15

A young woman arrives in Paris where she finds a job as a waitress in bar next on Avenue Montaigne t

Blood and Chocolate
2.8

Blood and Chocolate

2007-01-26

A young teenage werewolf is torn between honoring her family's secret and her love for a man.

Half-Cocked
3.1

Half-Cocked

1994-12-30

A group of high school teens steal a van full of music equipment and pretend to be a band called "Tr

Make Me Psychic
3.4

Make Me Psychic

1978-01-01

Anita the duck buys a psychic device at a novelty store in an alternate universe and creates mayhem

Good Girls
4

Good Girls

2016-11-25

Two sisters navigating the no man's land between childhood and adulthood have to deal with the conse

Beauty Becomes the Beast
3.5

Beauty Becomes the Beast

1979-01-02

Beauty Becomes the Beast describes a random access world mediated by TV images and shards of popular

Once My Mother
4

Once My Mother

2014-07-24

Australian filmmaker Sophia Turkiewicz investigates why her Polish mother abandoned her and uncovers

Gypo
2.6

Gypo

2005-08-24

Gypo is the story of a working class family in Margate, Kent, a town where immigrants have become th

Quiz Show
3.6

Quiz Show

1994-08-25

Herbert Stempel's transformation into an unexpected television personality unfolds as he secures vic

Herbie Fully Loaded
2.9

Herbie Fully Loaded

2005-06-22

Maggie Peyton, the new owner of Number 53 - the free-wheelin' Volkswagen bug with a mind of its own

The Silence
3.8

The Silence

1963-09-23

Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her s