DAP - Movie #4: The Prince of Egypt

This is part of my ongoing series of DAP posts.

Dreamworks Animation Movie #4
The Prince of Egypt
1998
Rating: PG
Budget: 70 million
Box Office: 218 million plus


IMDb Logline: "An Egyptian prince learns of his identity as a Hebrew and, later his destiny to become the chosen deliverer of his people."

Review: One Rod Down.

I don't think watching Dreamworks Animated films this old will really be relevant to understanding the studio today. 

The dialogue was often painful and the story, while worthwhile, was ill-fitting for an animated feature film. The songs were unbelievably corny, with lyrics like: "With my father, brother, mother, oh so noble, oh so strong, now I am home, here among my trappings and belongings, I belong... I am a sovereign prince of Egypt, a son of a proud history that's shown, it's on every wall."

The Ten Commandments was epically entertaining. The Prince of Egypt is a weak copy, despite its ambitions and animated free reign, and even certain favorable changes (brotherhood rather than rivalry forged between Moses and his future rival, the Pharaoh). The animated Moses fell flat in look, movement and character development, never transcending a cartoon. Val Kilmer as his voice was meh, and when overly enunciating also served as the voice of God. The heart of the story was so dulled, by the time the plagues were unleashed, the animated Moses seemed more an antagonist than a hero. 

While I hope this movie was helpful to inspect for a historical perspective on Dreamworks Animation, it's galaxies apart from the studio's most successful contemporary ventures. Dreamworks has not only abandoned traditional animation in favor of computer animation, but possibly musicals along with hefty adult themes involving slavery and the smiting of children. Rather than prophets, heroes are now represented by an array of plucky animals. This movie is a good case for why.