Review of Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) by Barry R — 22 May 2015

Exodus: Gods and Kings.

"Ambitious in its scope and its effects are dazzling. Everything else, be ready to get disappointed.".

'Exodus: Kings' would've been a better title for this flop of a film. The problem I had with this 'historical' motion picture was that it never jumped the fence, instead it situated itself, comfortably, on it. It isn't daring enough to make a convincing point for atheists (those who named themselves 'realists') to say that such events never happened, that the bible has no historical evidence. It's neither a spiritual film; one of the many reasons is that the image of God is voiced out of the body of an 8 years old boy. Every scene that we get to see of Moses and his interactions with God seems to be too dull and too cold to garner much interest without dozing off. I have some respect for the way Riley Scott handled the subject matter but believe me, I would much have preferred Darren Aronofsky's Noah over this. I felt like the latter had much to show for; the direction, the imagery, and the acting was surprisingly Oscar worthy, even if it takes a bizarre turn in its last hour. Exodus follows the same pattern, but instead it plays it safe and to be honest, nobody likes a person that wants to play Switzerland. The scope of Exodus is like any other film that adapted the story of Moses, however, unlike those films ('Ten Commandments' 'Prince of Egypt'), this Exodus comes off as spiritually dead, cold, lacking in any faith or feeling. The only time it does gain some momentum is when Moses returns home to Egypt to deliver his people, instead Rameses replies by having each Israelite family executed. It's hard to watch and it does a good job in entertaining the audience with a moves encounter countermoves, but without any faith, it just becomes pointless and less compelling. There's a scene in the end of the movie where Moses travels in a shaded caravan with an army of Israelite slaves trudging behind him, miserable, starving and hot were the expressions on all of their faces including Moses himself. I couldn't help but laugh at how they looked because those are the exact expressions I had while watching this film. If you don't have a backing or reason why Moses should lead an army of Israelites out of Egyptian captivity then what's the point in marching endlessly in a god forbidden wasteland. If Ridley Scott had given God a stronger image, a stronger presence than what was shown, I felt like an audience would be more understanding of Moses' situation, that he is leading his men by faith in the almighty. Instead we get to see 100 extras march in a hot desert with Christian Bale looking weary and thirsty. Maybe that's just a realist way of thinking but it's not satisfying or moving in both ways; entertainment and spiritual wise. If Ridley Scott went all out with the idea of faith and God, then his movie might've been better received. The result is that Exodus is, overall, a joyless ride, ambitious though that I can give Mr. Scott, but lacking in any sort of conviction or inspiration to make an audience feel like they've been hit with something good.

My advice is to stick to watching the '10 hour long Commandments' or the faith inducing, crowd pleasing, spiritually uplifting and nostalgia of 'The Prince of Egypt'. The latter is by far one of my favorite re-tellings and I feel like it does its source material justice with great voice actors, voice singers and the presence of the almighty powerful God.

2/5 Stars.