Exodus – Gods and Kings

Exodus-Gods and Kings, is a disappointing effort from (Sir) Ridley Scott.

While the movie’s scale and a few action sequences (good 3D effect as well) pique your interest, it lacks the drama to sustain it. One cannot play too much with a known and an old myth/story, but a few creative liberties would have helped this aspiring-to-be-a-blockbuster effort. Or it should have been true to the fable/myth/religious context. The movie takes a middle approach and it shows in all the departments. Chrisitian Bale and the rest of the cast do what they are supposed to do. Seasoned actors like Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver do just a little bit, lest you should miss them or be mistaken for set properties.

Here’s an excellent snippet from a review on a Forbes.

The key fatal flaws of Exodus is the lack of any emotional focal point and a lack of any real urgency to the proceedings. The film is so emotionally flat, really throughout the entire 150-minute run time, that it feels less like a movie than a handsomely-staged and visually-spectacular book report of the story of Moses and the Jews. The film stumbles badly in its second half as well, attempting to “deepen” the story by making Moses conflicted and offering hints that he was basically a terrorist (he explicitly states that they have to attack the civilians to nudge the government), regardless of the fact that God is basically going to do what God is going to do with or without his help

While the movie’s marketing tried to steer away from the classic ‘The Ten Commandments’ (so did the animated film ‘The Prince of Egypt’ in the past) the comparisons would be inevitable. If the old film plate effects do not bother you, The Ten Commandments is still a great film to watch.

Tailpiece: The famous red sea sequence is treated ambiguously and becomes ordinary in the end, when a drenched Moses is found on the beach, as if waking up from a stupor.

Here’s the scene from the classic ‘The Ten Commandments’