Title: Joseph: King of Dreams
Genre: Biblical, Historical, Animated Film
Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5
General Set-Up: Joseph: King of Dreams is an animated retelling of the story of Joseph found in Genesis.
Characters: Joseph is the main character in this series. Although he looks more white than he would have actually been, he is written into the story well. In the Biblical account, it is unclear if Joseph was prideful with his brothers about his dreams or used Jacob’s favoritism over them. This version takes on that Joseph was humble, but imperfect, sometimes doing things that upset his brothers.
In my opinion, Joseph’s brother(s) were a little too generic. And they all looked around the same age which is impossible. Also, Joseph’s mother was the only mother shown in the movie and not the mother of his eleven step-brothers.
Plot: The plot follows the general story of Joseph found in the Bible. However, several things are left out or changes for the convenience of the plot. One thing I cannot shower with praise enough is showing the loss of identity that Joseph would have suffered. Because Joseph was educated, it is possible that he had studied Egyptian, and that was shown in the movie. Becoming a slave, he would have been stripped of his native language and cultural identity. He was made to dress like an Egyptian, talk like one, and do Egyptian traditions. Losing and regaining identity is a theme that is supposed to be understood in the Biblical text, but is often accidentally overlooked.
While some of the details are left out or changed for artistic purposes, I still feel that this was a fairly accurate portrayal of Joseph's story.
Ending: The ending was similar to the ending of the Biblical account. The final scenes of the movies was the nation of Israel arriving in Egypt.
Sound: The only song that really stood out was the track “You know better than I.” In my personal opinion, the lyrics of this song were much better than the music that they were put to. The singer does a good job considering what he was working with, but I would have liked more instruments than just piano.
None of the other songs stuck out, or even were good. Considering the musical success and genus of the creators of Prince of Egypt, I was rather disappointed in the music in this film. It is the typical home release musical music.
Animation: The animation for Joseph: King of Dreams was not half as good as its predecessor, Prince of Egypt. It was clearly a feature for the small screen rather than the silver screen. The style is very similar to Prince of Egypt, but often less detailed. CGI is also used in some of the scenes. Let’s just say that this is one of the times where it would have been MUCH better if they did not use CGI. It looks bad. Like really bad and doesn’t blend with the other animation at all.
All in all, the animation was not terrible considering the time, but on the other hand Prince of Egypt showed us all that animation could be. All of the animation in Joseph: King of Dreams is underwhelming.
Things to watch out for: N/A
Other Media: Prince of Egypt tell what happened after the events in Joseph: King of Dreams.
Where to watch it: Joseph: King of Dreams is currently streaming on Netflix.
No comments:
Post a Comment