It’s really not that bad. Really.
Exodus: Gods and Kings is another sword and sandal epic by the master of the genre Ridley Scott. The man who brought you Blade Runner, Alien, Gladiator. The man whose brother, Tony Scott, committed suicide two years ago and his movies have been lackluster since. Give him a break, we should be happy he’s still making movies! Gladiator this is not, but also original story this is not. It does have a similar beat pattern: Moses/Maximus, the man who was once a general, who became a slave, who defied an emperor. Exodus: Gods and Kings really is just the re-imagining of the Cecille B. DeMille classic Ten Commandments story.
There is nothing new here. Well, there might be more white people in this one. Man are there a lot of white people. It’s not that they’re just white, Ridley Scott had to pick the whitest whites: Signorney Weaver, Christian Bale, Aaron Paul. When the Europeans first came to America, the natives thought that they were angels because their skin was so white. That was centuries after this took place. I already spoke about this at lengths on my blog, but the spray tans were so distracting; especially actor Ben Mendelsohn. Casting people this white is about as historically accurate as casting some of the characters to be CGI ancient aliens.
If you are familiar with the story, because who isn’t, Christian Bale plays Moses in probably his worst role yet. Moses was originally of Hebrew origin. His mother gave him up at birth and floated him down the Nile in a basket. The basket just happened to float into the eye line of Pharaoh's whatever, who then took the child out of the river and into the tender, loving, rich, and powerful royal Egyptian family ignoring and hiding his Hebrew heritage. Exodus: Gods and Kings just kind of skimps over these details. Details that made the original Ten Commandments so much more epic. More time was spent in the original establishing Moses as Egyptian, so when it is revealed that he is really a Hebrew slave; it’s devastating. In this version, Christian Bale just stops washing his face and kind of shrugs it off as if to say: “uh, I guess I’m with these guys now.” The turnaround is rather quick and not really given the brevity of drama that it deserves.
This movie will get the same critiques as Noah did for lack of Biblical accuracy. But what book to movie adaptation is ever as good as the book? Creative liberties need to be taken with certain things since its a visual medium with time constraints. Moses’ staff is traded for a sword, God is personified by a seemingly spoiled creepy British boy, the ten plagues are interpreted as having natural causes, but for the most part the story sticks to the source material. Poorly, but it does. When you think about it, what other way are they gonna show the ten plagues? They are forces of nature, and the forces of nature are acts of God and they are powerful and humbling.
The worst part about this movie is the wonky pacing. Time is spent establishing Moses as a general. When he is approached by God, he tells Moses that he needs a general. So Moses uses his general knowledge to train the slaves into a guerilla Hebrew army. Then God comes back just to say: "yeah this isn’t working, let me do it." So what did we just spend the last thirty minutes watching? A big epic excuse to have time wasting battles, all because you liked Gladiator right? The movie opens with Egypt going into battle with Ramses and Moses leading the charge, Moses saves Ramses to show how close their bond as brothers is. Then when it’s revealed that Moses is Hebrew - nobody cares about all that other stuff! I know that is what is supposed to happen, because that’s what happened in the Bible, but here it just feels unnatural and weird. The Ten Commandments spent time establishing the story, Exodus: Gods and Kings cuts the story into the slimmest skeletal framework in favor of elaborate battles and jaw dropping plagues. Here is a good example of wonky pacing: Moses goes into a village and meets a girl with face tattoos for the first time. Her father invites him to stay the night, Moses and face tattoos are talking while tending to goats; jump cut to Moses and face tattoos now getting married. That really happens!
Ridley Scott is infamous for gutting movies in the editing bay and then releasing more well thought out versions as “directors-cuts.” He has done it with basically every movie he’s ever made. The shining example is Blade Runner, I don’t know how many different versions are of that movie.Alternate cut. Extended cut. Directors Cut. Extended Directors Cut. Unrated Directors Cut. Unrated Alternate Directors Cut. Just make the movie good the first time. If there is not enough time to have the whole thing, have a version with an intermission - the original Ten Commandments did. That movie is almost four hours long. You can have an epic movie if you flesh out the characters and have awesome battles. I’ll hold it.
Exodus: Gods and Kings is another sword and sandal epic by the master of the genre Ridley Scott. The man who brought you Blade Runner, Alien, Gladiator. The man whose brother, Tony Scott, committed suicide two years ago and his movies have been lackluster since. Give him a break, we should be happy he’s still making movies! Gladiator this is not, but also original story this is not. It does have a similar beat pattern: Moses/Maximus, the man who was once a general, who became a slave, who defied an emperor. Exodus: Gods and Kings really is just the re-imagining of the Cecille B. DeMille classic Ten Commandments story.
There is nothing new here. Well, there might be more white people in this one. Man are there a lot of white people. It’s not that they’re just white, Ridley Scott had to pick the whitest whites: Signorney Weaver, Christian Bale, Aaron Paul. When the Europeans first came to America, the natives thought that they were angels because their skin was so white. That was centuries after this took place. I already spoke about this at lengths on my blog, but the spray tans were so distracting; especially actor Ben Mendelsohn. Casting people this white is about as historically accurate as casting some of the characters to be CGI ancient aliens.
If you are familiar with the story, because who isn’t, Christian Bale plays Moses in probably his worst role yet. Moses was originally of Hebrew origin. His mother gave him up at birth and floated him down the Nile in a basket. The basket just happened to float into the eye line of Pharaoh's whatever, who then took the child out of the river and into the tender, loving, rich, and powerful royal Egyptian family ignoring and hiding his Hebrew heritage. Exodus: Gods and Kings just kind of skimps over these details. Details that made the original Ten Commandments so much more epic. More time was spent in the original establishing Moses as Egyptian, so when it is revealed that he is really a Hebrew slave; it’s devastating. In this version, Christian Bale just stops washing his face and kind of shrugs it off as if to say: “uh, I guess I’m with these guys now.” The turnaround is rather quick and not really given the brevity of drama that it deserves.
This movie will get the same critiques as Noah did for lack of Biblical accuracy. But what book to movie adaptation is ever as good as the book? Creative liberties need to be taken with certain things since its a visual medium with time constraints. Moses’ staff is traded for a sword, God is personified by a seemingly spoiled creepy British boy, the ten plagues are interpreted as having natural causes, but for the most part the story sticks to the source material. Poorly, but it does. When you think about it, what other way are they gonna show the ten plagues? They are forces of nature, and the forces of nature are acts of God and they are powerful and humbling.
The worst part about this movie is the wonky pacing. Time is spent establishing Moses as a general. When he is approached by God, he tells Moses that he needs a general. So Moses uses his general knowledge to train the slaves into a guerilla Hebrew army. Then God comes back just to say: "yeah this isn’t working, let me do it." So what did we just spend the last thirty minutes watching? A big epic excuse to have time wasting battles, all because you liked Gladiator right? The movie opens with Egypt going into battle with Ramses and Moses leading the charge, Moses saves Ramses to show how close their bond as brothers is. Then when it’s revealed that Moses is Hebrew - nobody cares about all that other stuff! I know that is what is supposed to happen, because that’s what happened in the Bible, but here it just feels unnatural and weird. The Ten Commandments spent time establishing the story, Exodus: Gods and Kings cuts the story into the slimmest skeletal framework in favor of elaborate battles and jaw dropping plagues. Here is a good example of wonky pacing: Moses goes into a village and meets a girl with face tattoos for the first time. Her father invites him to stay the night, Moses and face tattoos are talking while tending to goats; jump cut to Moses and face tattoos now getting married. That really happens!
Ridley Scott is infamous for gutting movies in the editing bay and then releasing more well thought out versions as “directors-cuts.” He has done it with basically every movie he’s ever made. The shining example is Blade Runner, I don’t know how many different versions are of that movie.Alternate cut. Extended cut. Directors Cut. Extended Directors Cut. Unrated Directors Cut. Unrated Alternate Directors Cut. Just make the movie good the first time. If there is not enough time to have the whole thing, have a version with an intermission - the original Ten Commandments did. That movie is almost four hours long. You can have an epic movie if you flesh out the characters and have awesome battles. I’ll hold it.
