Review of Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) by Headcrusher — 01 Jan 2015

To make it simple - it's basically what you might get if you take the Ten Commandments story, give it to someone who creates graphic novels and then replace God with Damien, the devil's child from the Omen movies.

The first part where Moses has no idea he's a Hebrew goes pretty well, (with a few Gladiator flashbacks), and I'm thinking this movie looks pretty good. Awhile later Moses is exiled from Egypt by his brother and must suffer in the desert for 12 long miles until he discovers a bunch of sheep, and a well with a beautiful woman - (how convenient) whom he marries. Then one day Moses goes up the hill after his sheep hits his head on a rock, and becomes encased in mud during a landslide where he meets Damien from the Omen movies in a vision (claiming to be God) who tells him to go fight the Egyptians.

Moses, extremely confused from his recent concussion, decides to leave his wife and son and start a training ground for Hebrew terrorists, freedom fighters if you prefer , who are going to bring some pain to the Egyptians - hitting them where it hurts ( home is where the heart is) - and Moses runs off with the men to burn down the Egyptian sea port city . When the attacks due come it's a little confusing who is burning who alive all the time. But before before you can be sure who is on fire and why, Damien returns and tells Moses - "you ain't seen nothin' yet", and proceeds to torture the Egyptians with various plagues starting with giant man eating crocodiles, followed by other small animals, insects and vermin and when Moses complains to Damien - "Are you done yet?" Damien answers " nope not yet" - and he send a few more plagues. He kills all the Egyptian firstborn and then the army divisions who go after the Israeli's in the end - kills them with a giant wave that looks suspiciously like the one from "The Abyss" the Special Edition in the alternate ending!

From the time of the crocodile attack after this movie became mostly comedy. It was actually pretty funny when you think of it in terms of Moses being fooled by the devil pretending to be little boy - because that is how God is painted - a little whiny kiddy. This film makes no effort all to retain the original biblical story and does so at it's own peril, creating instead a caricature of the actual story with it's lifeblood drained away. It makes no sense to deviate from the original story when you have nothing better to offer.

I wanted to like this film more, and it did make me laugh more than most comedies, but that was only because of the ridiculous way the story was re-written. Hopefully someday someone will take another stab at it. I give it 8 stars for the fun it will be for screenwriting students to analyze this films adaption from the Bible.