The recent trend of Bible-based films has yet to bring us a classic like The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur, but I had high hopes for Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings. The $140 million epic features an all-star (albeit, controversial) cast that includes Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton and Ben Kingsley, along with stellar special effects and a great director in Scott. With all those terrific pieces, it's amazing that Exodus is so truly awful. This is a bland, uninteresting, emotionless, tedious affair that stretches nearly 2 hours and 30 minutes. The special effects are momentous, but the lack of character development, the cliches, and the poor pacing make Exodus one to avoid.
Exodus: Gods and Kings tells the iconic story of Moses (Christian Bale), the Egyptian general who was outcast and became a revolutionary of sorts. The film begins with Moses and Rhamses (Joel Edgerton) as the leaders of Egypt. They're sent off to go battle an army, but before they go, a prophesy is read about one leader saving another and that leader becoming a king. The battle is fought and Moses ends up saving Rhamses' life. That gives him all the more reason to hate Moses. It is later discovered that Moses is a Hebrew, and he is exiled to somewhere.
Moses starts a family and begins his own life. Fast-forward nine years, we learn that God is now asking him to free the Hebrews from the slavery of Egypt. Moses and an army of revolutionary Hebrews launch a full-on war against the Egyptians, accompanied by gory plagues, nasty locust scars, and the death of thousands of Egyptian children. All in 3D!
Exodus: Gods and Kings is a very bad movie. Not decent or okay or disappointing. Just plain bad. The actors are sufficient and the special effects are appropriately glorious, but there's just no getting around how empty this movie is. For one, it's two and a half hours, when it should be nearly three and a half. There's simply too much story to tell, so Scott ends up rushing through any sort of development to get to the big-budget, showstopper action scenes that ultimately felt lackluster because of how bored I was by the film. Exodus is all boring action and nothing more, making for a cinematic experience that feels bizarre, bland and frustratingly tedious.
The acting in this movie is one of the few aspects that I don't have a problem with. Christian Bale is decent as Moses, bringing a relatively minor amount of depth to the character. However, I still didn't understand Moses' reasoning or motivations, which seems to contradict the rest of the ideas in this film. But that isn't Bale's fault- it's the fault of the mediocre script. Joel Edgerton is also sufficient, but I hated the direction that the filmmakers took Rhamses. The attempts at making him sympathetic failed and the attempts at making him a truly vicious antagonist failed miserably as well.
The supporting cast is rounded out by famous people who have barely anything to work with. Sigourney Weaver must have owed Ridley Scott some kind of favor, because her role is so completely menial and pointless. There's no reason for her to be in this movie and her character is underwritten to the point where it's painful. John Turturro is also in this movie as Seti, and he has very little to do as well. Ben Kingsley's Nun and Aaron Paul's Joshua are barely even characters, standing in to advance the plot whenever necessary. It's frustrating and inexcusable for a filmmaker of this caliber.
The character development problem is the fundamental one that pretty much leads to this movie's downfall. It's amazing to me that people don't understand this fairly simple principle- if the audience doesn't care what's going on, no amount of mind-blowing CGI can save your movie. Exodus falls into that trap about a half hour in, settling for cliched emotional sequences and big, bombastic action. The action is dull and pointless, but the emotional scenes are even more grating.
For example, Moses has a family in this movie. And I'm sure that Moses did have a family in real life. But in the movie, Scott devotes about twenty to thirty minutes of time to these family members. The film shows Moses getting married, playing with his son and doing other stuff. And it's boring. Nobody cares. I really wish that someone would have said that to Scott or one of the screenwriters. The family just takes up time that isn't necessary. I would have rather seen more time devoted to Moses' internal conflict about killing thousands of Egyptians and less of him throwing rocks in a bucket with his uninteresting son.
The filmmakers also obviously had no idea what to do with Rhamses. He doesn't work as a sympathetic villain or as a dastardly antagonist. Instead, Rhamses ends up being someone that we kinda like, but kinda don't. There's this weird middle ground that I'm not sure even the film understands. They want you to hate Rhamses when he's doing bad guy stuff, but they also want you to cry and feel bad that his kid got killed because of his ignorance. It doesn't work on any level and it's just idiotic.
What we're left with is a film that rushes along, but with no true sense of pacing. Scott moves through the plagues so quickly that they're almost indistinguishable. Crocodiles, frogs, flies, locusts, blood sacrifices, mass warfare- all gorily depicted in crystal clear 3D. It's visually dazzling, yet completely uninteresting. Even as the film moved along to the Red Sea sequence, I found myself unexcited. I was anticipating the show-stopping special effect, but at that point, I knew that there was no way to save this film.
If Exodus were only a tad dull and bland, but still visually awesome, that might be okay. Yet this movie also manages to consistently disappoint on many other levels. Not only are the characters underdeveloped, they also seem to make crucial, life-changing decisions in no time. Moses leaves his family without question, immediately trusting the little boy that claims to be God. Rhamses also attacks Moses after letting him take off with the slaves. Why? I don't know.
Scott's attempt at explaining every disastrous plague fails miserably as well, sucking any of the joy and wonder out of this film. Apparently the Red Sea parting was caused by currents that separated the sea in half. Maybe that's how it really happened. I don't know and nobody really does. But for the sake of a big-budget, entertaining movie, just allow the Red Sea to be parted by God. It's not hard.
In the end, Exodus: Gods and Kings is like Gladiator, except that it's not good. Boring, overlong, underdeveloped, and just a mess of everything, Exodus is exactly what I hoped it wouldn't be. The script is mediocre and I really don't think that the filmmakers knew what they wanted to do. Christian Bale is solid, but I couldn't get a read on his character nor any of the other characters in the film. All in all, if you're heading out to the movies this Christmas, Exodus is a pretty easy one to cross off your list completely.
THE FINAL GRADE: D+ (4.8/10)
Image Credits: Screen Rant, Schmoes Know, The Guardian, We Are Movie Geeks, Hitfix, Screen Rant
Exodus: Gods and Kings tells the iconic story of Moses (Christian Bale), the Egyptian general who was outcast and became a revolutionary of sorts. The film begins with Moses and Rhamses (Joel Edgerton) as the leaders of Egypt. They're sent off to go battle an army, but before they go, a prophesy is read about one leader saving another and that leader becoming a king. The battle is fought and Moses ends up saving Rhamses' life. That gives him all the more reason to hate Moses. It is later discovered that Moses is a Hebrew, and he is exiled to somewhere.
Moses starts a family and begins his own life. Fast-forward nine years, we learn that God is now asking him to free the Hebrews from the slavery of Egypt. Moses and an army of revolutionary Hebrews launch a full-on war against the Egyptians, accompanied by gory plagues, nasty locust scars, and the death of thousands of Egyptian children. All in 3D!
Exodus: Gods and Kings is a very bad movie. Not decent or okay or disappointing. Just plain bad. The actors are sufficient and the special effects are appropriately glorious, but there's just no getting around how empty this movie is. For one, it's two and a half hours, when it should be nearly three and a half. There's simply too much story to tell, so Scott ends up rushing through any sort of development to get to the big-budget, showstopper action scenes that ultimately felt lackluster because of how bored I was by the film. Exodus is all boring action and nothing more, making for a cinematic experience that feels bizarre, bland and frustratingly tedious.The acting in this movie is one of the few aspects that I don't have a problem with. Christian Bale is decent as Moses, bringing a relatively minor amount of depth to the character. However, I still didn't understand Moses' reasoning or motivations, which seems to contradict the rest of the ideas in this film. But that isn't Bale's fault- it's the fault of the mediocre script. Joel Edgerton is also sufficient, but I hated the direction that the filmmakers took Rhamses. The attempts at making him sympathetic failed and the attempts at making him a truly vicious antagonist failed miserably as well.
The supporting cast is rounded out by famous people who have barely anything to work with. Sigourney Weaver must have owed Ridley Scott some kind of favor, because her role is so completely menial and pointless. There's no reason for her to be in this movie and her character is underwritten to the point where it's painful. John Turturro is also in this movie as Seti, and he has very little to do as well. Ben Kingsley's Nun and Aaron Paul's Joshua are barely even characters, standing in to advance the plot whenever necessary. It's frustrating and inexcusable for a filmmaker of this caliber.The character development problem is the fundamental one that pretty much leads to this movie's downfall. It's amazing to me that people don't understand this fairly simple principle- if the audience doesn't care what's going on, no amount of mind-blowing CGI can save your movie. Exodus falls into that trap about a half hour in, settling for cliched emotional sequences and big, bombastic action. The action is dull and pointless, but the emotional scenes are even more grating.
For example, Moses has a family in this movie. And I'm sure that Moses did have a family in real life. But in the movie, Scott devotes about twenty to thirty minutes of time to these family members. The film shows Moses getting married, playing with his son and doing other stuff. And it's boring. Nobody cares. I really wish that someone would have said that to Scott or one of the screenwriters. The family just takes up time that isn't necessary. I would have rather seen more time devoted to Moses' internal conflict about killing thousands of Egyptians and less of him throwing rocks in a bucket with his uninteresting son.The filmmakers also obviously had no idea what to do with Rhamses. He doesn't work as a sympathetic villain or as a dastardly antagonist. Instead, Rhamses ends up being someone that we kinda like, but kinda don't. There's this weird middle ground that I'm not sure even the film understands. They want you to hate Rhamses when he's doing bad guy stuff, but they also want you to cry and feel bad that his kid got killed because of his ignorance. It doesn't work on any level and it's just idiotic.
What we're left with is a film that rushes along, but with no true sense of pacing. Scott moves through the plagues so quickly that they're almost indistinguishable. Crocodiles, frogs, flies, locusts, blood sacrifices, mass warfare- all gorily depicted in crystal clear 3D. It's visually dazzling, yet completely uninteresting. Even as the film moved along to the Red Sea sequence, I found myself unexcited. I was anticipating the show-stopping special effect, but at that point, I knew that there was no way to save this film.
If Exodus were only a tad dull and bland, but still visually awesome, that might be okay. Yet this movie also manages to consistently disappoint on many other levels. Not only are the characters underdeveloped, they also seem to make crucial, life-changing decisions in no time. Moses leaves his family without question, immediately trusting the little boy that claims to be God. Rhamses also attacks Moses after letting him take off with the slaves. Why? I don't know.
Scott's attempt at explaining every disastrous plague fails miserably as well, sucking any of the joy and wonder out of this film. Apparently the Red Sea parting was caused by currents that separated the sea in half. Maybe that's how it really happened. I don't know and nobody really does. But for the sake of a big-budget, entertaining movie, just allow the Red Sea to be parted by God. It's not hard.
In the end, Exodus: Gods and Kings is like Gladiator, except that it's not good. Boring, overlong, underdeveloped, and just a mess of everything, Exodus is exactly what I hoped it wouldn't be. The script is mediocre and I really don't think that the filmmakers knew what they wanted to do. Christian Bale is solid, but I couldn't get a read on his character nor any of the other characters in the film. All in all, if you're heading out to the movies this Christmas, Exodus is a pretty easy one to cross off your list completely.
THE FINAL GRADE: D+ (4.8/10)
Image Credits: Screen Rant, Schmoes Know, The Guardian, We Are Movie Geeks, Hitfix, Screen Rant
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