The Prince Of Egypt Details

This rousing animated interpretation of the story of Moses from the DreamWorks production team has a visual grandeur that's almost a match for the best of Disney (perhaps not surprising considering executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg was the man responsible for the look of Disney's animated features during the early 1990s). From its magical opening sequence, showing the baby Moses's journey down the river, to the visually stunning sections involving the parting of the Red Sea and the plagues — the curse on the first born is particularly disturbing — this makes for epic cinema. A cast of Hollywood heavyweights — including Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock and Jeff Goldblum — provide emotive vocal contributions, enhanced by Stephen Schwartz's stirring, Broadway-style songs (the moving When You Believe — sung by Pfeiffer herself in the film — won an Oscar). Admittedly, there are more than a few episodes where dramatic licence comes into play, and some may even see it as religious propaganda, but this is still an astonishing animated achievement, particularly for a studio still in its infancy.

An animated feature that mistakenly apes the epic spectacle of a Cecil B. de Mille Ð while a real cast of thousands or vast sets may appeal, the effect is diminished when drawn, since anything is possible with pencil and paper. For a rival to Disney, it s