joseph: king of dreams

i watch this movie at least twice a year. not necessarily because its so good, which it actually is pretty good, but because i show it to my sixth graders every hear as we go over the story of joseph. this animated movie was a straight to video release from dreamworks a year or two after their first foray into biblical animated movies with 'the prince of egypt'. this one follows the story of jacob's favorite son, joseph. the animation style is the same as prince of egypt and fits perfectly with the story being told. the style actually varies a lot during the dreams joseph has or interprets. each of the dreams have a unique style from the rest of the film and are done mostly with computer images instead of hand drawn images like the rest of the movie. in fact, one of the dreams actually looks like a moving van gogh painting- very cool! the story strays from scripture quite a bit, but the ideas and basics of the tale are still there. the original songs are good too, there arent any musical number that get everyone on screen singing and dancing, rather, most of the songs are sung as if it were a commentary on the story, used over top of a montage. ben affleck does a good job as the speaking voice of joseph, with this kind of vocal talent, its obvious that dreamworks had high hope for a continued bible themed video franchise. its too bad they didnt make any more, if this one is any indication, there would have been quite a few more good ones to come!