Review: Joseph: King of Dreams (2000)

I know it’s an overstatement to say that DreamWorks Animation acted like the older brothers of Joseph and cast their movie version of the Joseph story down a well, but it’s hard not to see parallels between the fate of this movie and the fate of Joseph at two dark points in the story: down in a pit, looking up at the portal of light above, hoping to be elevated to a position of recognition. Yet, unlike the family dynamics between Joseph, the favoured younger son, and his older brothers, DreamWorks Animation condemned their lower budget follow-up to 1998’s The Prince of Egypt to direct-to-video release. It’s no surprise that in the two-and-a-half decades since, Joseph: King of Dreams has lingered in relative obscurity. 

As a father of young children who has surveyed the barren terrain of solid film adaptations of Bible stories for children, discovering Joseph came as refreshment. Here is a movie that works as both animated musical entertainment for families and as a faithful, thematically rich Bible story. It isn’t loaded with jokes and gags and there isn’t much fighting, but it never drags and it is not a sermon. Rather, it tells a familiar old story as a compelling human drama, and it does so with good music and animation, and in a crisp 74 minutes. 

The story of Joseph comes at the end of the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. Joseph is the eleventh of Jacob’s 12 children, and the son of Jacob’s beloved second wife, Rachel. (Jacob, also known as Israel, is the son of Isaac, and Isaac the son of Abraham.) As the Joseph story explains what brought the Israelites down from Canaan to Egypt, where they would eventually be enslaved by Pharaoh and in need of God’s deliverance, you can see why DreamWorks selected the story. It works as a prequel to the Moses and Exodus story of Prince of Egypt, and, in comparison to other parts of Genesis, it tells a fairly fleshed out and coherent narrative that has a clear arc and is comprehensible and appropriate for children.

The opening number, “Miracle Child,” illustrates how Jacob (voiced by Richard Herd, and sung by Russel Buchanan) privileges Joseph (Ben Affleck, sung by David Campbell). Jacob gives Joseph a special coat of many colours and encourages him to study and learn, rather than work in the fields and with the flocks like his older brothers. The film portrays the oldest brother, Judah (Mark Hamill), as the leader and face of the older brothers. Other than Judah and Simeon (Steven Weber), the older brothers in the movie are largely indistinguishable, forming a mass of shirtless, rugged men, in contrast to the smaller, more effeminate Joseph in his vibrant coat. 

A young Ben Affleck brings convincing emotion to his lines, especially in the exchanges with his brothers. Mark Hamill’s Judah shows yet again Hamill’s immense talent as a voice actor, giving colour and weight to Judah’s lines, in what could easily have been a forgettable character without Hamill doing the voice. 

While Joseph: King of Dreams does not tell a complicated story, it does touch on the deep emotions connected to our family dynamics in a way that is affecting for both children and adults. We see the favouritism, antagonism, and resentments that can build up, and the difficulty, yet necessity, of forgiveness. I also appreciate how the screenplay lets Joseph’s character grow: yes, early on he is gifted with special powers, such as the interpretation of dreams, but he is also full of himself, and must learn humility and perseverance in order to become the great leader his childhood dreams foretell. 

Joseph: King of Dreams also shows how difficult forgiving family members can be. His brothers’ betrayal shocks Joseph to his core, upending his world. His brothers become like aliens to him. Joseph is sold into slavery and taken to Egypt, where he enters the household of an Egyptian official, Potiphar (James Eckhouse). It isn’t until the second treachery committed against Joseph, however, that the character really changes. When the wife of his master accuses him of trying to be with her (the film manages to suggest the biblical story’s false charges of rape without being too adult for kids), Joseph winds up in prison. 

In the dark pit, Joseph will have to learn to come to terms with life’s twists and trials, and we get the best song in the film, “You Know Better Than I.” With gradually building piano and David Campbell’s strong voice, the song expresses surrender to God’s will as the way to accept and move past the worst of life. Throughout the song, we watch Joseph tend to a dying sapling in the middle of his prison cave; through his care, and the portal open to light and rain above, the tree grows and eventually thrives—a potent visualization of the song’s themes. Caring for the growing tree is also the work that keeps Joseph going in prison. 

Only once Joseph is at peace with both his past and his present circumstances is he able to use his talents—his intelligence, wisdom, and managerial leadership—to help the Egyptian people survive seven years of famine, a wider regional event which will eventually bring his brothers down to Egypt to buy grain for the family of Jacob. Joseph, who has astonishingly risen to become Prime Minister of Egypt, will have to choose to either take revenge or forgive his brothers: will he still see them as the cruel strangers who sold him into slavery, or can they recover the relationship of family?

Joseph: King of Dreams is at heart a movie about family; The Prince of Egypt is about nations. A difference in scale is also the main difference between the animation of the lower-budget follow-up and its big-budget predecessor. Although it doesn’t come close to depicting the wonders of the Ten Plagues of Egypt or Moses parting the Red Sea, Joseph: King of Dreams similarly features traditional hand-drawn animation enhanced by computers. The characters are drawn with the strong stylistic lines of the DreamWorks look at the time. A song sequence, “Marketplace,” when Joseph arrives in Egypt, replicates, on a smaller scale, some of the powerful visuals of The Prince of Egypt, with the kingdom of the Pharaohs once again depicted as a towering human achievement built on the backs of slaves. 

The standouts scenes, in terms of animation, are the dreams Joseph has and interprets. Each one is done in a different visual style. For instance, Joseph’s early dreams look like moving Van Gogh paintings, with vibrant blues and yellows and the appearance of fat brush strokes. Later on, Pharaoh's dream about the cows and vines consuming one another takes on a vaguely sci-fi dystopian look, with the devouring cows being enormous pillars and the devouring vines being dragon-like machines.

Although, on the technical and artistic levels, Joseph: King of Dreams might not be an equal to the masterpiece, The Prince of Egypt, it is also a worthy addition to the list of solid Bible adaptations. Both DreamWorks Animation films should enjoy heavy rotation among families who want to show Bible movies to their children.

8 out of 10

Joseph: King of Dreams (2000, USA)

Directed by Robert Ramirez and Rob LaDuca; screenplay by Eugenia Bostwick-Singer & Raymond Singer and Joe Stillman and Marshall Goldberg; starring Ben Affleck, Mark Hamill, Richard Herd, Maureen McGovern, Jodi Benson, Steven Weber, James Eckhouse.

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