46. Joseph: King of Dreams
The phrase “Dollar Store Prince of Egypt” comes to mind.
I hadn’t heard of this movie before, really. I see it in Dreamworks lists often but forget it’s a thing just as often and there’s a reason for that. First of all, it’s the first of Dreamworks’ official line-up that’s a direct-to-video feature, which means the animation is nowhere near as good as The Prince of Egypt or El Dorado. It chugged in a lot of places and there was even a point where I said this looks like a worse version of the visual essence of Simba’s Pride.
This movie took me on a strange roller coaster ride though. When it began I was laughing at it when the first song started. The songs in this film are terrible. They’re so generic and paying attention to the lyrics, almost every time, summoned a giggle from me. At first, my thought was that I was going to be in for an amateurish time where nothing interesting happens.
For a while it was definitely like that. Joseph (Ben Affleck) was a really hard character to like at the start of the film. I did end up being okay with him by the end but only in terms of his demeanor. In that, he stopped being annoying. Even so, he and his father remain the only ones that did and this is only when you factor in general attitude. If you factor in anything else than things get rather problematic rather quickly but we'll get to that.
The rest of the cast are all either supremely generic or terrible people who are being brushed with the cloak of forgiveness for some truly heinous stuff they do and have continued to do. Like, the way this film portrays slavery is night and day compared to the Prince of Egypt. It’s so weird.
The film begins with Joseph being considered a miracle child and taught to read and write by his parents because he was birthed from a woman who was said to not have children. Already, this is strange and problematic because treating your child whose done nothing yet like they're super-special-awesome, especially when he has brothers that would likely feel the sting of jealousy for his special treatment, can psychologically damage all the children involved. And it does.
But we gotta sit here and watch Joseph's parents sing to him that he's the miracle child. Then Joseph will galavant around and sing in his special coat they gave him about how he's the miracle child.
For I am a miracle child
I can't be harmed, I'm wrapped in rainbow
Though fate can be heartless and wild
My life's been charmed
And shall remain so
I was made for something more,
Not to struggle, but to soar
To my fortune reconciled
For I am a miracle child.
What the fuck? These lyrics guys. I can't. XD
Then the, admittedly interesting, premise kicks in where it turns out that Joseph has dreams that not only come true but he can decipher the meaning behind other people’s dreams as well. The way this “gift” manifests in the film as extremely problematic despite it also being able to do some good for the land Joseph eventually calls home is pretty good. The dream sequences are all pretty good as well, utilizing different styles and techniques of animation to get across the surreal nature of them through paintings or a more ominous nature through CGI and dark lighting. They did a good job on those.
However, the problem with this film really does fall on the story and how it tries to have its cake and eat it too. The same message that starts off the Prince of Egypt about how it's a faithful and respectful adaptation of the story of Joseph begins this one, as it’s purposefully meant to be a prequel or a companion piece to that movie. In Prince of Egypt, despite obvious embellishments, it definitely felt like it.
Here, this film feels like a strange fairy tale with how it handles its subject matter and the way it alludes to certain horrible things happening but waves it off like it’s nothing for the sake of singing about how happy everyone is at the end.
Joseph being considered the “miracle child” by his parents upsets all his other brothers. There’s like ten of them and they’re led by one named Judah (Mark Hamill) in hatching a plan to get revenge on their brother for being… I dunno, considered greater than them, I guess. At this point, Joseph has done nothing wrong except sing some embarrassing lyrics to a song imparted to him by their parents.
Despite Joseph WANTING to be with them and wanting to help them, they do things like go off swimming while they trick him into tending the sheep. Then when wolves attack them and their father yells at them, they blame Joseph for what happened even though they weren't around to help. So the parents treat Joseph like he's special and Joseph gets blamed for that despite him genuinely wanting to be their brother.
Boy howdy. I can sure see why they'd want to take revenge on him. But hey, they ARE his brothers right? So the plan of revenge they hatch will likely function as an appropriate, rambunctious response to–no, I’m just kidding. They sell him into slavery!
That’s when the film finally starts to get interesting... but then it does something really weird.
This story is like the opposite of the Prince of Egypt because Joseph actually ends up working for a kind slave master named Potiphar (James Eckhouse) and it was very odd. The way he was showing respect and admiration for Joseph in such an honorable manner made me fret because I didn’t want this movie to try and sell me on the idea of “the honorable and humble slave owner” as a character.
I was relieved when Potiphar’s wife Zuleika (Judith Light) came onto Joseph and when Joseph refused to betray Potiphar she made it out to be as though Joseph came onto HER. Naturally, Potiphar tries to sentence Joseph to death for this. Zuleika pleads for him not to die and when Potiphar asks her why she grows silent, unable to tell the truth… but he understands the truth and bumps Joseph's sentence for doing nothing and being loyal to him from death down to imprisonment.
So yay! I don’t have to like the fucking SLAVE master anymore, right? Except, no, says the movie.The roller coaster goes back down later because while he’s in prison he meets two prisoners with two different dreams. Joseph interprets those dreams and says that one of them will be let free and be made a butler while the other will be beheaded and crows will feast on his body. Both of these events will happen in three days.
Then when the three days pass, the guy who is sentenced to death is dragged out to go get beheaded, saying that Joseph’s gift is actually a curse on his way out. Meanwhile, Joseph is just preoccupied with making sure the other one tells the Pharaoh his name so they won’t forget he’s locked up there. Doesn’t seem like he cares that much that the other guy got gruesomely killed by that oh so kind and honorable slave master. What a pal, that guy.
Then Potifar comes back some years later and lets him go and the two are happy to see each other! It’s a big ol’ happy reunion and Joseph is still loyal to him and Potifar is like “I trust Joseph with my life” to the Pharaoh. Then the Pharaoh has his dreams read by Joseph and immediately makes him the highest authority in the land underneath him after that single dream reading!
I laughed out loud just reading that but that's what fucking happens. Good lord.
So yeah, Joseph is the leader of all the slaves now and it’s treated like this big happy moment or something. Apparently I’m supposed to see this as a good thing. That guy who got beheaded and had his body feasted on by crows? I wasn’t supposed to care about him. It’s a good thing that Joseph leads a place that would do something like that to someone… apparently.
Potifar’s wife isn’t seen for the rest of the film so I guess he either had her killed or... I dunno.
Also, Joseph gets married to a woman who was trying to feed him food while he was in prison. At first I thought this was Potifar’s wife but no. It's an entirely different girl who is actually Joseph’s love interest but the introduction for her doesn’t actually exist. Joseph already knows who she is at the time we see her trying to sneak him food and then they’re married a few scenes later and have a kid.
This is where I'd post the old man shrugging meme if I could.
This movie is extremely clunky. It’s a shame because in a few spots it feels like the pacing might even be better than Prince of Egypt’s but then it pulls something random out of thin air and I’m left wondering what the hell it thinks it’s doing. Not to mention, the juxtaposition between how hopeful and happy it’s trying to be about the events that are unfolding with how horrible the implications behind everything here actually is just… does not work. It doesn’t work.
I’m sorry but I don’t buy that all these enslaved people are living happily under Joseph’s rule or whatever. How can I when they’re beheading people and even showing people get whip lashes at the start of the film? Did Joseph put a stop to that? I dunno. The film never tells us! Maybe he does in the actual story (I doubt it) but even if he did it doesn’t matter because that information isn’t in the film.
The thing that did make me like Joseph more as a character, at least, is the scene that happens at the end when his brothers who sold him into slavery come back into the story.
And they're like sad or some shit. Oh boo hoo. We sold our brother into slavery and we feel bad about it because it made our parents sad and ruined their happiness. Somehow we didn’t see that coming.
An interesting tidbit is the fact that they have a new brother now. He's a much younger one who has never met Joseph. He's only heard the story of how their family was scarred by his disappearance. Joseph pulls this young one aside and talks to him while focusing his attention on his brothers in a very regal and calm manner. Witnessing what he does now that he’s in a position of power over them and seeing how it all shakes out was really interesting and it ended up coming off rather endearing.
Yeah, he scared them a bit but he opened the forum without them knowing and they confessed to what they did. Then Joseph revealed who he was and forgave them.
Now I… can’t be bothered to forgive the brothers for selling Joseph into SLAVERY but you know… the film felt like it was trying something neat there. Sadly it only kind of works in that it's a well-done scene but the nuisance behind it is still very icky. It's surrounded by so much dirty muck that I can only give it props in a vacuum and, unfortunately for this film, it does not exist in a vacuum.
So, uh, yeah. I dunno. It’s a bad film and the more you think about it the more problematic it gets. That coupled with the less than stellar animation and the really laughably bad songs, it’s something I would only say is worth a watch just to see how uncomfortable it can make you and probably no more watches after you’re finished.
FoR I aM tHe MiRaClE cHiLd! I'M sO sUpEr SpEciAl AWESOME cAuSe My mOMmY aNd dAdDy ToLd mE sOOOooOoo~! AND NOW MY BROTHERS ARE SELLING ME INTO SLAVERY BUT IT'S OKAY BECAUSE YEARS LATER I'LL BE THE ONE IN CHARGE OF THE SLAVES AND THEY'LL FEEL BAD ABOUT IT! LA-LA-LAAAAA!
