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In retrospect, The Prince Of Egypt feels torn by that feud with Disney, and it’s at its best when it’s striking out and showing what DreamWorks can do, rather than apeing the House of Mouse. Shrek is as different from Antz and The Prince Of Egypt as they are from each other, but from that point on, the studio mostly cranked out comedies to mark themselves apart from the struggling Disney. While the original really holds up, its brand of broad, pop-culture parody became the studio’s default mode for a while afterwards. The roaring success of Shrek was both a good and bad thing for DreamWorks. Determined to free his people from slavery, he returns to confront his adopted brother, before an almighty reckoning falls upon Egypt. When his Hebrew heritage is revealed in the form of his estranged sister, Miriam (Sandra Bullock) ,and a vision of God as a burning bush (also voiced by Kilmer), Moses discovers his destiny. Found and adopted by the royal family, Moses (voiced by Val Kilmer) grows up as a spoiled prince, with the heir to the throne, Ramses, (Ralph Fiennes) as his elder brother. Originally conceived as a musical remake of The Ten Commandments, this adaptation of the book of Exodus takes in sun, sea, and suspicious parentage, starting when the infant Moses is sent up the river in a basket.
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While it was eventually leap-frogged into cinemas as part of a very public feud about Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, The Prince Of Egypt was originally intended to be the studio’s first film and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s the better of the two. Cast: Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfieffer, Sandra Bullock, Steve Martin, Martin ShortĪs mentioned in our look back at Antz, 2018 marks the 20th anniversary of DreamWorks Animation’s first feature films.
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