Joseph: King of Dreams (2000)

“We are family. All of us. If we break apart we’ll have nothing left. ” – Rachel

Number of Times Seen – 2 (8 Feb 2012 and 19 Aug 2018)

Brief Synopsis – Based on the Bible story of Joseph who was sold as a slave and sent to Egypt and managed to rise to the height of power.

My Take on it – This is a film that takes a Bible story and expands on it enough to keep things more interesting yet doesn’t attempt to try and preach anything in particular.

The message of forgiveness pops up throughout and they handle it quite well so that it doesn’t feel overwhelming.

This film is considered by many to be a prequel to, but I like to think that it was used as an attempt by Dreamworks to see if the amazing and inspiration work on The Prince of Egypt (1998) was a fluke or do they have a future telling Biblical tales like these.

The way the story is told deviates slightly from the story set forth in the Bible yet still stays within permissible and realistic boundaries.

This film utilizes much of the enjoyable aspects of The Prince of Egypt (1998) yet still doesn’t manage to come even close to the levels reached just two years earlier.

The music feels too uninspirational and this helps us understand what possibly prompted studio execs to not release this film theatrically but instead straight to video.

The voice cast is superbly chose and they all do exquisite work.

Ben Affleck, Mark Hamill, Richard Herd, Steven Weber, Jodi Benson and Judith Light all are great here because they help us understand their natures even more.

This film is presented quite well and stays enjoyable the whole time, even for those who already know the ending.

Bottom Line – Great retelling of this classic tale which allows for some really fascinating interpretations of the story. This film is a pseudo-prequel for Dreamworks and utilizes many of the aspects used in The Prince of Egypt (1998) yet doesn’t manage to reach the levels of the other film. The music isn’t as inspirational here and I can somewhat understand why they eventually chose to have this released directly to video instead of theatrically.  The voice cast is great with Affleck, Hamill, Herd, Weber, Benson and Light all doing great jobs.  They do an excellent job presenting this story in a very interesting fashion. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – The adornments Joseph is given after interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams are a wink to the earlier DreamWorks film, The Prince of Egypt (1998). Joseph very closely resembles Moses.  (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)

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