1998’s Prince of Egypt is what you might call a hard act to follow and the first thing any discussion of Joseph: The King of Dreams should stress is that it is neither fair nor productive to compare the two. But I’d argue there is actually a lot to learn from putting the two movies side by side.

I’ve always believed that, when it comes to animation at least, “cheap” is not the same as “bad”. Obviously, a generous budget is rarely a detriment but plenty of animators have put out stunning work on a shoe-string. And plenty of movies had absolutely scads of money thrown at them and still managed to look like something that the cat puked up on the rug. What makes the Dreamworks Torah Cinematic Universe so instructive is that it’s two movies created at the same time by largely the same team of artists, just with very different budgets. King of Dreams was, like Return of Jafar, intended to be a straight to video sequel (or prequel in this case) of a much bigger, much more-high budget theatrical release. But, Aladdin was done by Disney Feature Animation and Return of Jafar was palmed off to Disney’s TV animation studios in Australia and Japan. By contrast, King of Dreams was animated concurrently with Prince with Egypt, and by the same team of animators. This makes the two movies a fascinating case study, showing how much a budget matters in determining quality and also how much it doesn’t.

Because yeah, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that the two movies are equally beautiful. Clearly they’re not.

And yes, the wonderfully detailed, semi-realistic style of human animation that Prince uses is absolute murder for the King of Dreams team trying to render it with less time and resources and it does sometimes end up looking a little janky. But honestly, more times it doesn’t. My point is, I honestly love this film for how hard it tries and frequently succeeds in escaping the creative ghetto. This is a straight to video cartoon sequel. Hell, this is a faith-based straight to video cartoon sequel. The fact that it’s not absolutely terrible is an achievement. The fact that it’s good, often touching great, is a genuine miracle.

Okay, so. Joseph. He was Jacob’s favourite son. Of all his children, Joseph was the favourite one. Jacob wanted to show the world he loved his son to make it clear that Joseph was the special one. So Jacob bought his son a coat, a dazzling coat of many colours. It was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach…

Anyway, so Joseph is the youngest of Jacob’s eleven sons and the first by his favourite wife, Rachel. Jacob treats Joseph like his heir apparent, lavishing upon him a splendid coat of many colours. Oh, and he insists that Joseph stay at home and study scripture instead of hanging out with his brothers, tending sheep with their shirts off like Matthew McConaughey. Now if the Bible teaches us anything (and current scholarly consensus is that it does) it’s that brothers are bad news. Having brothers. Being a brother. The entire situation is always a net negative. So Joseph’s brothers start to resent Joseph because of their father’s blatant favouritism. Things get even worse when Joseph starts having dreams where the sun and the moon bow down before him.

But Jacob is all “wait, maybe my son is Galactus” and this makes the other brothers even madder. Joseph tries to help out with the shepherding but his brothers are angry with him because his dreaming woke up the whole tribe and meant they had to start work early. Joseph counters that they’re actually tired because they were out drinking and carousing with women and committing genocide on entire cities by tricking the menfolk into circumcising themselves and then slaughtering them while they were recovering (Genesis is buck fucking wild).

Finally things get out of hand and in an altercation Joseph falls into a pit in the desert. This is a major softening of the brothers from the original text. In the Bible, the brothers (with the exception of Reuben) decide to just murder him in cold blood. Here, it’s more that the situation just escalated out of control. Because they’re terrified of getting in trouble with Dad, they decide to sell Joseph into slavery and tell their parents he was eaten by wolves. If you’ve had younger brothers, you can relate.

Joseph is taken to Egypt where we get the song “The Marketplace” which

Has

No

Business

Slapping

This

Fucking

HARD.

This song is crazy good I have been listening to it on repeat. And what’s really galling is that it’s just played in the background of the scene, beneath the dialogue. So you’re trying to listen to it and all you can hear is “How much for the Caananite? Move slave!”. Here’s the proper version:

I love it. The mixture of menace and opulent glory is such a perfect summation of the glory and cruelty of Egypt and it’s a stunningly well written piece. Every line hits like a train. I’ve been belting “YOU ARE EGYPT’S NOW!” in the shower for days.

So Joseph gets bought by Potipher, an advisor to the Pharoah and his wife Zuleika.

Joseph, having been educated by his father, soon proves himself indispensable to Potipher. He also finds himself falling for Potipher’s daughter Asenath. It’s actually never explicitly stated in the Bible that Asenath’s father Potipherah is the same dude as Potipher but that is a theory in Jewish tradition and it makes for a stronger story so…

Now, if you’re familiar with the story and know what comes next and have seen that this movie somehow got by with an All Ages rating you might be wondering: HOW? HOW DID THEY DO THAT?

Well, honestly, just by being smart. So, as in the Bible Zuleika sexually assaults Joseph and, when he resists, falsely accuses him of rape. How the movie gets around it is by showing and not telling. No one ever actually says what Joseph is accused of doing, we just kinda get it from context. It’s all:

“Joseph! After I take you into my home how could you betray me by doing…that?”

“Master! I would never do…that! I would never dream of doing…that!”

Potipher orders Joseph to be put to death but Zuleika begs him to spare him (again, another villain in the story given a slightly more sympathetic portrayal here) and Potipher realises what actually went down. But, to prevent his wife being disgraced, he sends Joseph to prison.

It’s honestly a very well acted, very well directed scene dealing with extremely mature themes handled with great sensitivity and care. In a direct to video cartoon from 2000. God damn.

Like Prince of Egypt, King of Dreams had a team of religious scholars on hand to ensure Biblical accuracy. Now, you can make a Biblically accurate Bible movie or a good movie but not both. The stories of the Bible were not intended to be entertainment, they were both moral instruction and history, whose purpose was to explain and reinforce the tribal power structures of the time. This is why the Old Testament is so obsessed with lineage and explaining who begat who. They’re not meant to fit neatly into a three act structure because life and history don’t do that. So any Biblical adaptation has to streamline and omit and simplify. That said, King of Dreams is remarkably flush with the text. Partially I think that’s because Joseph is just an easier character for a modern audience to get a handle on. The era of Genesis and Exodus is just so alien to our own and the actions of the main characters can seem inexplicable and often barbarous.

Joseph, by contrast, is pretty chill. Sure, he’s a bit of a Mary Sue and a drama queen but he overwhelmingly acts in ways that seem good and moral even to modern eyes. The Bible also gives him many touching moments of humanity, like when he has to leave the room to cry because he’s overwhelmed with emotion over seeing his brothers again after so many years. The upshot of this is that King of Dreams is one of the more Biblically accurate movies I can recall seeing, certainly more than Prince of Egypt, which made some pretty big swerves like Moses and Ramses being raised as brothers (not complaining, that’s a great choice). Other than cutting that weird digression in the middle of the story where we can meet Onan and learn why you’re going to hell for touching yourself, the movie follows the story with remarkable fidelity. To whit:

Joseph gets thrown into prison with Pharaoh’s baker and butler who have both displeased their master. Both men are troubled by dreams and Joseph uses his skill to interpret them. Joseph tells them that the butler will be forgiven, but the baker will be executed. All this is faithful to the letter of the text. But it’s the little details, how the movie fills in between the lines. When the baker asks Joseph to interpret the dream, he first says that he doesn’t know, because he doesn’t want to tell the baker the awful truth. The whole scene is just a very strong example of taking, let’s call it “terse”, material and layering humanity and emotion over it in a way that’s still perfectly faithful. It’s a great adaptation is what I’m saying.

Anyway, Joseph spends two years in jail, with Asenath secretly sneaking him food. He goes through a whole cycle of anger and despair before finally finding meaning in caring for a tree in his cell and nursing it to health and re-discovering his faith in God. Finally, Potipher arrives and brings him before Pharoah who’s been troubled with dreams.

So, let’s talk about the dream sequences because they’re probably what the movie is best known for. They’re honestly a mixed bag. Some of them, like the Van Gogh inspired sequence where Joseph predicts the wolves attacking the flock is absolutely gorgeous. Some of them though, like these two of Pharaoh’s predicting the seven fat years and seven lean years are done in CGI and…

Anyway, Joseph tells the Pharaoh that his dreams mean that Egypt will have seven years of plenty and seven years of famine and the thing to do would be to get someone really smart to create a reserve of food for the coming hard times. Pharaoh’s all,”you seem smart, how about you?” and Joseph’s all, “sure, beats jail, I guess”.

So Joseph becomes the new Royal Vizier and amazingly does not immediately become a traitorous, twisty-bearded bastard. He marries Asenath, has a couple of kids and becomes the second most powerful man in all Egypt.

The lean years come and soon everyone is coming to Egypt for grain. Including Joseph’s asshole brothers. Joseph, understandably, is not quite ready to forgive and forget. As none of his brothers recognise him, he refuses to sell them grain and accuses them of being spies. They tell him everything about them, including that Joseph now has a brother who he’s never met, named Benjamin. Joseph imprisons one of the brothers, Simeon, and tells them to prove their story is true by bringing him Benjamin. The brothers are confused not understanding why Benjamin even matters. But of course, in this life, it’s ALL about the Benjamins.

The brothers return with Benjamin and Joseph learns that Rachel is his mother and that she died many years ago. Joseph and Benjamin talk and he asks him about his brothers and whether he trusts them as they are only his half brothers. Joseph acts all chill, releases Simeon and then holds a feast for the Caananites. But afterwards, he stashes a golden chalice in Benjamin’s bag and accuses him of stealing from Egypt as they’re about to leave. The other brothers all offer themselves in exchange for Benjamin’s life, saying that they will not allow their father to lose another favoured son. And Joseph is so touched by this that he reveals to them the truth. He forgives his brothers and welcomes their whole tribe to come and live in Egypt and has a tearful reunion with his father.

***

Scoring

Animation: 14/20

A little janky in places, and certainly nowhere near the calibre of its older sibling but still striking, well executed and at times visually stunning.

Leads: 15/20

Ben Affleck is actually excellent. A far better voice actor than I would have expected. And this Joseph has a very compelling arc from naive, slightly brattish Golden Child to saviour of Egypt.

Villain: N/A

No, I don’t think it really applies. Antagonists, sure, but no one is a straight up villain here.

Supporting Characters: 11/20

Unlike Prince of Egypt, which had a good bench of supporting characters, the pickings are a bit slim here. Potipher is definitely a strong character though.

Music: 15/20

Seriously, a straight to video sequel has no business going this hard. You could put The Marketplace in Prince of Egypt and it would be one of my two favourite songs in that movie.

FINAL SCORE: 69%

NEXT UPDATE: 18 December 2024

NEXT TIME: Hey, it’s Christmas. Time to treat myself.