Review of Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) by Liam C — 24 Jun 2015

Faith based films are coming back with a vengeance and 2014 was full of them; Hollywood realised they could make lots of money with a small budget so they figured they could get even more money with a huge budget! 'Exodus: Gods and Kings' is certainly quite the spectacle.

This story has been brought to the screen so many times but to put it simply, 'Exodus' is the action movie of the bible, it has it all. So the thing that will give this its unique point in 2014, filmed in 2013, is the sheer size, scope and spectacle of it all, and honestly, this film does look terrific, but from Ridley Scott, I'd expect no less. This film has a relentless pace, things are always on the move and there is a huge battle sequence right in the first 10 minutes. The plagues are also relentless and just happen one after another with no breaks and I know Jaws is a shark but if you thought Jaws was violent, you haven't seen anything yet. The cinematography was fantastic and had many little neat tricks, like showing one side of a plague about to happen, cutting to see what was happening and back to the shot from before, I like stuff like that and the soundtrack was great, the makeup and costumes were also fantastic, especially on Bale at the end. This film is one of the prime examples of how to do 3D right, I didn't see the film in 3D but given how naturally the action happened, as well with the plagues and epic chases, it wouldn't come across as a cheap gimmick to see it in 3D. Which is unlike the rest where they would just throw something at the screen, the sheer size of this film is reason enough to put it in 3D. The only thing that seemed wrong with the look is that there was far too much greenery at the start, however, after the time skip, it goes away; which makes sense as it is suppose to show the decay of the land during Ramses reign.

I remember when I saw promotional images of the film before I saw it, I thought it looked quite silly as well as the poster with the characters on it looking heavily photoshopped and I thought the casting of Joel Edgerton was beyond bizarre, as well looking strange. But he obviously got the part for a reason because he did a really good job in his role, as did Christian Bale, it made me laugh though because right near the end when he is tired and worn out he does his Batman voice for a line or two, so it makes sense, but still. They play very complicated versions of these characters and you feel it. It was funny to see that Aaron Paul was playing a character that could not feel pain and had a crazy looking smile the whole time, he is playing Joshua but it doesn't matter as we'll see him as Jesse Pinkman, but his role did seem rather small. While most of the actors try, some of them don't even bother to hide their accent or make another one, Sigourney Weaver is quite distracting, she isn't in the film much but when she is, it feels off. There are others that do cause more of a confusing because they're in it more, especially one in the opening minutes, but that was just an example as some lines are also performed quite badly by some of the actors. I thought it was a bit unrealistic that Ramses was by himself when Moses went back to confront him and it was funny that Ramses made a big speech about himself being a God but Moses was nowhere to be seen. Given the way a character says, 'I will see you again' I expected a, 'in this life or the next', but no, I'm just remembering 'Gladiator'.

While the film is a visual treat, it seems very oddly assembled. Moses' wife doubts the existence of God and when he sees God again he doesn't try to show his wife. At one point he brings his son inside and then we see that he was playing with dice like God was earlier on, was that supposed to mean something? The scene just cuts to the next day, after. At one point we see Joshua spy on Moses where it looks like he is talking to himself and I don't really know why that scene was added as it is the only time anything like that is put in. The audience already has the thought that Moses might just be crazy as opposed to having a calling, just how I remember 'Noah' handling it, through Moses' actions and what the other slaves think about him but nothing ever becomes of it. The film is also very underwhelming at points, the burning bush is here, of course, and while it looks dazzling like everything else, it's just in the background and mostly blurred out of focus half of the time. While I thought it was odd to put a face to God because these films always try to do the opposite of that, putting God as a child honestly makes a lot of sense, but nullifies even the point of the bush as it was just used to summon him in person or something. There was one point where Moses is sitting on a beach and there is a rock next to him, I thought God could sort of morph out of that for that scene. Like I said earlier, one of the things this has over the others is the advancements in technology, so it is weird to see some scenes be completely void of that.

The finale of this film is very bad, Moses throws his sword into the ocean, it clears up and he can see it again, I thought him pulling it out would split the sea or something, it didn't but then a rock in the water began to surface and I thought Moses would have to stand on it, he doesn't. What actually happens is we see Moses walk into the ocean, it cuts to another scene back with Ramses and then back to Moses and he's already walking on the cleared riverbed, we missed everything. I wasn't expecting a big scene with Moses holding both of his arms out but the sword idea I had would have been less anticlimactic than that, but then again this film is trying to use science for that part to explain the water, like they were earlier to explain the plagues, I don't know why a film with a burning bush and a God child suddenly felt the need to use science but okay. I don't like the area they are in either, it seems too open for something like the parting, I mean, even at one point Moses brings attention to the current, I thought it could at least be going in two different directions.

It also lacks a final battle scene, or any kind of final scene at all, I can't believe the only fight scene was in the opening minutes. We see two armies racing towards each other readying themselves for a bloody battle, wherein all but one of their respective armies fall back, which is fine as this is a story about the two brothers but even that is cut woefully short by the huge water wave coming back in for some reason. It'd probably be too much fantasy for this film but I thought the water would part around Moses and Ramses to give us some sort of a fight, it doesn't and then it rushes through The Ten Commandments and just ends. Again, I wasn't expecting a scene where Moses emerges holding two stone slabs in his arms with the commandments on them but surely more can be done than that. We see Moses go back to his family at the end and I forgot that they were even characters in the film, one of the problems with this film is the emotion, the actors try but you never really feel the strain it puts on the brothers relationship, it doesn't even have a scene where they sit and talk about their feelings or anything. It doesn't matter if your film is fast paced the entire way through, if the ending ends on a whimper it can really nullify quite a lot of the impact of what came before it, which this almost did. The ending happens and it fades out slowly and, despite what happened before it, you just go, 'is that it?'. It's odd that this film had so many writers and this is what happened but then again that might be the reason.

While the pace of the film is good, the assembling of some of the scenes seems very backwards, and despite the running time, the ending seems quickly put together and is very rushed. Scott says there was a 4 hour cut available and I'm sure that explains why this film feels the way it does, but at that point, the editor failed to do their job, but then again, if some scenes aren't filmed, there isn't much they can do, but who knows what or what not was filmed? I'm glad Bale got to do this instead of Noah because if the roles were the other way around, it would feel slightly backward, but I'm not sure, Russell Crowe could do a great Moses, but if Edgerton was his brother? I don't think that would work. 'Exodus: Gods and Kings', a film that needed that subtitle because they could not get the rights to use 'Exodus', is not a bad film and I did like it, but it is just odd that seeing as how this story has been told many times, and it still cannot be done perfectly with the right amount of emotion and power. However, it might be in the extended version, which still isn't okay because it won't be the version everyone else saw, but given, overall, how well this was put together, I'd sit there for another hour and a half and watch it. I don't really understand the score being that low, though, and it isn't like the controversy played into that point specifically.