The Prince of Egypt, 1998. Voices by Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Stewart, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Helen Mirren.

Sergei Eisenstein, upon seeing Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs declared it the greatest film he had ever seen. He recognized in it the possibilities that animation offers the filmmaker. With animation, anything that can be imagined can be filmed. There are hints of this in The Prince of Egypt, the first fully animated effort from Dreamworks. It is a reworking of DeMille's The Ten Commandments shorn of the necessity to convince the audience of the reality of its special effects and streamlined for the mass audience. The story here is not played as a morality play, which is interesting, but is more concerned with the human heart in conflict with itself, which is even more interesting (such stories being the font from which Great Art flows). It depicts Moses as a reluctant messiah, beset by self-doubt and the guilt that comes from seemingly betraying his family. This is played out beautifully against the backdrop of animated wonders. It tries hard to step away from the Disney model. There are no anthropomorphic animals and it has terrifying manifestations of the Wrath of God. The scene where Moses first meets The Burning Bush, the scene where God sends the Angel of Death to Egypt, and the film's best setpiece, the parting of the Red Sea, have no equivalents in Disney's output. As I say, it tries hard to step away from the Disney model, but it errs on the side of timidity. In addition to its admittedly wonderous elements, it has songs. Bad songs. They bring the story to a screeching halt. It also omits the end of the story, the bringing down of the Ten Commandments, the Golden Calf, and the ultimate failure of Moses's faith. It isn't perfect, I guess. It is a step in the right direction. It is the best animated feature since Beauty and the Beast and it hints at the world of wonders that awaits the world when Hollywood and the public alike realize that animation has far more potential than its lot as the medium of choice for children's entertainments.