Exodus: Gods and Kings
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Written by: Adam Cooper & Bill Collage and Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian
Starring: Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, Aaron Paul, Ben Mendelsohn, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, Maria Valverde, Dar Salim, Golshifteh Farahani, Indira Varma
Action/Adventure/Drama - 150 Minutes Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 10 Dec 2014
Written by: Adam Cooper & Bill Collage and Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian
Starring: Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, Aaron Paul, Ben Mendelsohn, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, Maria Valverde, Dar Salim, Golshifteh Farahani, Indira Varma
Action/Adventure/Drama - 150 Minutes Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 10 Dec 2014
Exodus is an old story. It is right up there with Noah and the flood for how many rings it has in its tree trunk. 2014 already showcased Hollywood’s Noah facelift so now we get Ridley Scott’s Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt in 3D. You’ve never seen the plagues of frogs, flies, and locusts so clearly and in your face. These remind us the Old Testament God could get severely aggravated when pushed. There is no dead and buried subject matter Hollywood script writers and filmmakers won’t dig up, shake the dust off of the bones, and cake on some visual effects to recreate an earlier epic. Prepare yourselves for Ben-Hur We Go Again and The Greatest Story Ever Resold.
I am not on board with the vitriol against Ridley Scott’s casting in this film. If he wants Christian Bale to play Moses then so be it; it’s his vision. There is an actual problem though; he miscasts two outstanding actors. John Turturro (2014's Fading Gigolo) is awful as Pharaoh Seti and Sigourney Weaver as his wife, Tuya, is just as dreadful. Turturro and Weaver are not known as hams, but they take the audience right out of the story with how unimaginably out of step they are. Bale (2013's American Hustle) and Joel Edgerton (2013's The Great Gatsby), who plays Ramses, are effective and thankfully take up most of the screen time.
I am not on board with the vitriol against Ridley Scott’s casting in this film. If he wants Christian Bale to play Moses then so be it; it’s his vision. There is an actual problem though; he miscasts two outstanding actors. John Turturro (2014's Fading Gigolo) is awful as Pharaoh Seti and Sigourney Weaver as his wife, Tuya, is just as dreadful. Turturro and Weaver are not known as hams, but they take the audience right out of the story with how unimaginably out of step they are. Bale (2013's American Hustle) and Joel Edgerton (2013's The Great Gatsby), who plays Ramses, are effective and thankfully take up most of the screen time.
Bale, using the gravelly Batman voice you know from his superhero trilogy, quickly falls from happy-go-lucky palace insider to rogue on a mission to free folks he never paid any mind to before. God turns out to be a pre-teen boy who recruits Moses to head back to Pi-Ramses to free the slaves. Ben Kingsley (2014's The Boxtrolls) is the wise, old man Nun who speaks of prophesies and Aaron Paul (2014's A Long Way Down) is Joshua, a slave who feels no pain and naturally falls into place as Moses’s right hand man in the great migration from Egypt across the Red Sea.
The film hits its peak when God loses patience with Moses’s slow-boiling insurgency and sends the plagues. Crocodiles leap out of the Nile, tear some fishermen into bits, and then attack each other turning the Nile into blood red soup. A couple million frogs hop over every available surface, the populace share in an outbreak of boils and pustules, and get ready to paint your doorframe in a couple of liters of lamb’s blood to protect that first born.
Why remake The Ten Commandments? It appears Ridley Scott did it to show off the latest technological gee-whiz achievements. Parting the Red Sea must be any visual effects artist’s dream job and zooming in and around pyramids and statue scaffolding in 3D is all well and good, but where’s the beef? Moses and Ramses are like brothers. Moses and Ramses have a falling out. Moses leads the Hebrews on a really long walk. All the 21st century technology on Earth cannot provide enough CPR to resuscitate a story already cinematically beat to death.
Why not the same criticism for Noah? For starters, you never see his story put on film, let alone in the style Aronofsky chose to employ. Moses is the Abraham Lincoln of Old Testament film stars; might as well put him on the penny he is so ubiquitous. The Moses market is saturated. Yes, Exodus looks fantastic. The 3D is usually effective and watching the water come crashing down on Egyptian chariots is impressive. Yet 3D gadgetry does not a fresh movie make. Take away the polish and what we have is a story most folks in the audience can tell front, back and sideways. We just get to watch Batman lead the Hebrews this time around.
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