Ben Hur has been a seminal film in the different eras in which it appeared. The 1925 silent film was produced by Irving Thalberg, Louie Mayer and Sam Goldwyn and starred Ramon Navarro and Francis X Bushman, two of the biggest stars of the time. It cost $3.9 million and was the most expensive film to that date. It was a big success at the box office and with critics.

The 1959 film was directed by William Wyler who worked on the 1925 film. As with the previous film, it was the most expensive to date ($15 million) and also had big name stars, most notably Charlton Heston. It became the second highest grossing film of all time, behind GWTW, and received high critical praise, winning an unprecedented 11 Oscars.

What about this latest version. It doesn't exactly have big name stars. Jack Huston plays Ben Hur and Toby Kebbell plays Messala. It's directed by Timur Bekmambetov who's best known for "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter". The box office was pretty poor, not earning back the $100 million production costs.

The film bears only slight resemblance to the book. When you consider how successful the book was, the reason to vary seems questionable.

All things considered this is a far inferior film to either the 1959 or the 1925 version. Some of the scenes are well done (sea battle, chariot race) but not to an outstanding level as the previous versions had done.

When William Wyler made the second Ben-Hur film for MGM he said that he wanted to succeed all genres possible. Which in this case meant making a film that would rival the work that Cecil B. DeMille did in big budget spectacles. In some ways Wyler surpassed the master, certainly his dialog was not as arcane as DeMille's could be.

There were variations between Wyler's 1959 blockbuster with Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd and the silent version with Ramon Novarro and Francis X. Bushman. Still the basic themes of Lew Wallace's novel stayed true.

Not here folks. The director Timur Bekmanbetov was quoted as saying that the message of love and forgiveness just was just not something the American movie going public wanted. Nonsense, if Ben-Hur had stuck to the well established lines set by the author and the two classic films made from the novel it might have succeeded. The outcome of the chariot race and with it the main conflict with the Judah Ben-Hur and Messala characters is totally different and destroys the message of the Wallace novel. Forgivness is fine but there is a reckoning and an accounting to be made. The message of what goes around comes around is also popular.

Jack Huston of the Huston acting dynasty and Toby Kebbell are the leads as Ben-Hur and Messala. Messala is treated like young Tom Hagen who Sonny Corleone brings home and Vito decides they can keep him.

Rodrigo Santoro plays Jesus and instead of the rear view silent treatment given him in a lot of earlier Bible films, he's given a voice and personality. Only at the crucifixion does Santoro quote any scripture.

The only name most will be familiar with is Morgan Freeman playing the desert sheik who takes in the fugitive Ben-Hur and trains him in the chariot racing arts. The character of the Roman Consul Quintus Arrius is completely eliminated.

The cast performs well. But why was a tried and true formula tinkered with. Bekmambetov, you did it own up to it.

To me, and quite a number of others, the definitive 'Ben-Hur' version (also the best known) will always be the one from 1959 starring Charlton Heston and directed by William Wyler, a film that epitomises the term epic in every sense and in many ways iconic. A very strong case can also be made for the 1925 silent version, a huge achievement in its day and awe-inspiring in its spectacle.

Unfortunately, this cannot be said for this 2016 version of 'Ben-Hur', nowhere near in the same league as the other two, pretty much insulting to them and the source material, and a mess of a film in its own right. Judging it as a film on its own, a lot of it is disastrously executed and a few good things only just about salvages it from being bottom of the barrel. It's not one of the worst remakes like 'Psycho', 'The Wicker Man', 'Rollerball', 'Ghostbusters' and 'Stepford Wives' to name examples, but to me it's down there with the most pointless and one where one questions "what was the need".

Its least bad assets are some nice scenery, the sea battle scene that delivers on the tension and excitement that is severely lacking elsewhere and Jack Huston. Huston may not be as imposing or as charismatic as Heston especially, but he cuts a dashing figure and brings a quiet dignity to the title role and at least tries to give some likability. Elsewhere, 'Ben-Hur' is a failure.

Visually, only the scenery is halfway decent. It is however wasted by the film constantly being shot in a far too dark and murky way, chaotic cinematography and editing that looks as though it was done on a on-its-last-legs bacon slicer. The CGI is excessive, feels shoe-horned in and gives even more of an inept video game look. Even the costumes look cheap and very anachronistic to boot.

Sea battle apart, the action is undone by clumsy and chaotic choreography/staging, director Timur Bermambetov (directing throughout in a lifeless fashion, highly suggestive that he was not right for the material and clearly had badly misinterpreted it) taking it too far with the brashness and grit and by such a cheap visual look. The chariot race, brilliantly done in the 1925 film and iconic in the 1959 one, is too murkily shot, too choppily edited and too brash to be remotely exciting.

Was not expecting music on the same level as one of a kind Miklos Rozsa, but this aspect was not only uninspired and forgettable it completely jars with the period and like Marco Beltrami had forgotten what kind of film he was scoring for. It's not the only thing that fails to gel. Failing even more are the forced and heavy-handed religious and cultural elements and especially one of 2016's most cringe-worthy, embarrassingly out of place and pointless scenes in Jesus' epilogue.

'Ben-Hur' is very poorly written, with lots of melodrama and awkwardness and no heart or intrigue. The story really struggles to find its own identity and brings forth few ideas of its own. The famous scenes incorporated are completely diminished generally in impact, thanks to the visual ineptitude, being far too brash and breakneck in pace and the over-emphasis on the gritty tone. There is nothing epic here, instead one isn't ever entirely sure whether to consider it a completely soulless biblical drama or a completely humourless parody of 'Life of Brian'.

Regarding the cast, near-uniformly poor. Excepting Huston, who still isn't particularly great. Toby Kebbell fails to bring much threat or complexity to Messala, who is more stock than menacing or conflicted. The scenes between him and Huston are too soap-operatic to be believable. Simonides and Quintas are so mishandled in screen time (under-utilised) and development (one-dimensional) that the point of them being there is questioned. Faring worst are Rodrigo Santoro, trying too hard as Jesus in an interpretation so bizarre and out of kilter it was like he accidentally wandered into the wrong film, and the normally dependable Morgan Freeman looking like he wasn't even trying.

Overall, a mess with a lot of elements executed disastrously. There is definitely far worse out there but this was near-incompetent stuff with a few small salvageable elements. 3/10 Bethany Cox