6. Ben-Hur (2016)
In fairness, there always appears to be room for a good historical epic in Hollywood. Few of the genre’s movies have secured the lasting legacy of 1959’s Ben-Hur, so on paper, it seems a good candidate for a remake. That is, it did, until 2016’s Ben-Hur came along.
Given the original’s status as a cinematic classic, remaking Ben-Hur was clearly a task for one of the industry’s most respected directors. Instead, Timur Bekmambetov was brought in, a Russian-Kazakh director whose biggest Western hits were Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The results were underwhelming, to say the least.
2016’s Ben-Hur was a poor imitation of the time-honored classic it was based on. It used far too much CGI to achieve the timelessness of a good historical epic, and the famous chariot scene was hampered by some relatively shoddy editing. If you’re going to remake a classic, this really isn’t the way to go about it.