Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent but underrated film

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The only defense anyone can claim for this project is that it was the first contemporary Biblical film using US actors and contriving to appeal to the broadest possible range (to sell tickets to). That is the only reason I can see for the awful hacks made to the authentic story that has since been done at least once with a far superior script and production in the mid 90s. It was produced with lessor known actors and the focus was instead on authenticity and I have no doubt in the end that far more people have paid to see the latter film in the theater or through video sales. I don't recall if it is called "King David" in the main title or simply "David" with a secondary title more specifically indicating the Biblical story.I bought this film some time in the late 80s, when it was the only video I could find related to any Biblical story, other than "The Ten Commandments" and "Jesus of Nazareth" both of which are truly excellent films. Now that I have the newer version of David, I can't see any reason to take up any more shelf space, even though I already wasted my money on it and time watching it. That is how bad it is. I would feel guilty in playing it now that at least one far superior version in available the fate of this video will be that it is the sole video I have ever thrown in the garbage after determining it a liability with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Who was the audience for this film?! This is one case where I honestly wonder if the people associated with this film were either mentally imbalanced or using drugs! There is no other explanation for why you would make a Bible story come alive and infuse it with nudity! Think about it--die-hard Christians certainly won't come to the movie or would be offended by the nudity and Atheists are hardly the type people who frequent Bible-themed movies. And, Agnostics probably just won't care one way or the other. So, apart from the actors' friends and family, just who is the intended audience? Now I am NOT saying the story of David should have been sanitized--after all, murder and adultery are part of the Biblical account. You really can't talk about David without Bathsheba in this film,...but being that explicit?! The people making this film must have been out of their minds. The public apparently thought so, as this was one of Richard Gere's few box office flops.

M.De Mille ,you used to regale us with your "Samson and Delilah" or "ten commandments".They used to say your stories were not faithful to the Holy Writ.But who cares?Did the sultan care when Sheherazade was telling him endless stories which enthralled him?Bruce Beresford ditches the De Mille mold and opts for a serious reading (that's what the credits say)of the bible:it's a very tedious flick,which gives you the feeling that you are attending an interminable Sunday school lesson.The Lord is as intractable selfish and jealous as ever.The generally gloomy atmosphere -in spite of luminous landscapes- dampens any spirits,which is a shame in the case of a movie which should enlighten its audience.Of course we've got Goliath,Samuel,Nathan,and Bathsheba -who has barely five lines to say,whereas in Henry King's "David and Bathsheba" (1951),Susan Hayward got the lion's share.Richard Gere's wooden acting does not help.It's a boring movie.

For many years now this movie has remained my personal choice for Worst Movie Ever Made. Oh sure, others have come along to try to knock it off its pedestal, but KING DAVID remains, in that respect anyway, King of the Hill, A-Number One, Top Of The Heap. It's amazing to see so much money and talent poured into a fascinating, large-scale story of murder and betrayal and gods and scheming women and intrigue, only to result in a dreary stink-bomb of a flick that should forever stand as a cautionary lesson to those who would make a Sunday School story out of material that is, in the original, decidedly adult. The end result here is a movie that is embarrassingly awful even on fast-forward.