In The Beginning (2000)

Nearing the three hour mark, this follows the stories of Abraham (Martin Landau) and Sarah (Jacqueline Bisset) through to Moses (an ineffectual Bill Campbell) and the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. It's an dull, unimaginative effort of straight forward telling, the filmed equivalent of one of those "great stories from the Bible" picture books. It lacks the artistry and vision of something like John Huston's THE BIBLE (1966) whose film took a similar path but provided the imagination, mystery and moral conundrums that took the stories to another level. Only once is there is there any display out of the ordinary when Moses turns his staff into a cobra at the court of Rameses II (Art Malik) which is very well done. As for the rest of the film, too much is crammed into too little time so all we seem to get is highlights and some of the performances are truly dire, Eddie Cibrian as Joseph is particularly embarrassing, as if they were acting in a contemporary action movie. Kevin Connor gets the blame for the direction and the large cast includes Diana Rigg (very good as Rebeccah), Alan Bates, Christopher Lee, Geraldine Chaplin, David Warner, Amanda Donohoe, Steve Berkoff, Victor Spinetti, Frederick Weller and Terri Seymour as Eve.