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Why critics are destroying 'Ben-Hur,' which looks like the box-office disaster of the summer

Aug 19, 2016, 20:15 IST

Paramount Pictures

With the biggest summer releases behind us, we're in that strange time in the movie year until the fall releases vying harder for awards come out.

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So that brings us to the release of "Ben-Hur" this weekend, the last real attempt at a blockbuster this summer.

It's the latest retelling of the classic Lew Wallace novel best known from the 1959 Oscar-winning film version starring Charlton Heston.

The Heston version will remain the one to watch, at least according to critics who have seen the new "Ben-Hur." It currently has only a 29% ranking on Rotten Tomatoes.

The $100 million-budget Paramount release is projected to make no more than $15 million its opening weekend - a dismal return on what the studio put in, though it's still hoping religious viewers boost box-office numbers.

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We've seen the movie, and though it has extremely strong action sequences, its two-hour running time leads to an epic with little story. It's inevitably forgettable.

Below are the major problems critics have with the movie.

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