Let's Go Out To The Movies: Exodus: Gods And Kings (PG-13 - 20th Century Fox - 2 hrs, 30 mins)

Alo Party Peoples.

Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage,
Jeffery Cain, and Steven Zaillian

What's the point in telling this story again? Not that it isn't worthy of the silver screen, it's definitely worked before, but the story of Moses is one of those stories that has been told and retold so many times that you have to either have some fresh, new perspective on it, or really hit it out of the park to make another version worthwhile. Ridley Scott, doesn't have the former and hasn't done the latter.

First, our scenario. Christian Bale as Moses, and Joel Edgerton as Ramses are brothers in the Egyptian royal family. Ramses grows up to take the throne as pharaoh, Moses discovers that he is the man prophesied to free the kingdom's population of Hebrew slaves, if you've heard this story enough times to already be bored, Ridley Scott probably agrees with you. He seems less interested in telling the story of Moses than he is in getting interesting visuals out of it, and while said spectacle is gorgeous, it doesn't make the dramatic scenes around it any more involving. Said dramatic scenes are universally badly acted, the performers clearly didn't get any direction from a man more interested in playing with the fancy computer generated toys.

You won't hear much comparison to Darren Aronofsky's Noah from earlier this year. Despite their source material coming from the same source, they're trying to be two completely different types of movies. Where Noah was a psychological character piece dressed up with the trappings of mythic fantasy, Exodus is much more of a straight forward epic, with the attendant lavishly constructed sets, costumes, and long tracking shots of monuments being built, massive crowds and armies moving from place to place, and FX driven recreations of the Plauges and the parting of the Red Sea.

I was somewhat interested to see how an agnostic man would interpret this story, but Scott holds fairly close to the Biblical version, which is an impressive feat of translation, but he of course makes some changes. Unfortunately, the changes he makes are, in every instance, either superficial or stupid or both. Instead of turning the Nile into blood, a bunch of crocodiles get into a feeding frenzy which makes the water sort of red, Moses and Ramses get into a jousting match in the middle of the Red Sea, God appears to Moses in the form of a little kid, which makes every scene where the two converse unintentionally hysterical. Oh, and Moses doesn't have a staff in this version, he has a sword. It's a special sword, in that it's one of a pair of special swords, and Ramses has the matching piece. I could not have made that up if I tried.

Exodus: Gods and Kings is dull except when it's stupid. I was hoping this would turn out well, but it's a failure as a spiritual film, as a drama, and it's visuals aren't original enough to work as crowd pleasing spectacle. I do not recommend it, if you really need to see this story again, rent The Ten Comandments, or The Prince of Egypt if you have kids to entertain, or just, you know, read the book.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B