Review of Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) by Grant S — 04 Oct 2015

Weak on so many levels.

Directed by Ridley Scott, the story of Moses and his leading the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt. Starts with him being an Egyptian Prince and follows his story until after the parting of the Red Sea.

Not quite the Cecil B DeMille version of Moses... (for reference, see The Ten Commandments, 1956). While the story of Moses is taken from the Bible, Ridley Scott chose to make this movie as secular as possible. Fair enough: you want to draw in Christians and non-Christians alike - there's more money to be made that way!

However, in trying to avoid references to God as much as possible the whole story becomes contrived, fake and, well, silly. For example, the boy that appears to Moses from time-to-time is clearly meant to represent God (though, Biblically, God didn't appear as a boy and why would He?). But at no stage does Moses call him God or the boy admit to being God. Even when Moses asks who he is, the answer is "You know who I am".

So instead of direct references to God we have this weird, mysterious double-talk and obfuscation which just comes off as very lame.

It's not just in the dialogue that things get a bit silly. In the plot as well, Scott tries to replace the works of God with natural phenomena and, once again, he can't pull it off. The famous and iconic parting of the Red Sea becomes a much more minor event as a result.

Biblical inaccuracies aside, Even if you're happy to view the movie as purely a work of fiction and watch it as an original drama, it doesn't work. The plot drifts, doesn't always make sense or tie-up well and the movie could have done with some editing.

Performances are so-so. Even Christian Bale seems to be phoning it in. Joel Edgerton is okayish as Ramses. John Turturro seems miscast as Seti. Great names in the supporting cast - Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, Ben Mendelsohn, Aaron Paul, Tara Fitzgerald - but their considerable talents are vastly under-utilised.

About the only positive thing I can say about this is that at least it is not as bad as Noah...