Directed by:
Ridley ScottCinematography:
Dariusz WolskiComposer:
Alberto IglesiasCast:
Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, Aaron Paul, Ben Mendelsohn, María Valverde, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, Hiam Abbass, Ewen Bremner (more)VOD (4)
Plots(1)
Epic adventure Exodus: Gods and Kings is the story of one man's daring courage to take on the might of an empire. Using state of the art visual effects and 3D immersion, Scott brings new life to the story of the defiant leader Moses as he rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, setting 600,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues. (20th Century Fox)
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Reviews (10)
An untraditional presentation of God (the comparison God as a kid with a magnifying glass and people as ants lacks metaphor) and a story of Egyptian plagues. Scott works with modern themes and reflects the contemporary wherever he can. Sometimes this is to the benefit of the movie, sometimes to its harm. The problem is the restricted length (Sigourney appears almost as an extra) which eats away at the sophistication of the characters and the significance of some decisions. Exodus reminds me of the movie theater version of Kingdom of Heaven which, despite its quality workmanship, didn’t manage to say what it was all about and that wasn’t fixed until the director’s cut came out on Blue-Ray. The exteriors and the effects are well-polished and the Egyptian makeup soon didn’t matter anymore. At all stages of Moses, Bale was excellent, but his friendly atheist becomes a believer schizophrenic far too soon and in the second part the good guy turns into a bad guy, God knows why... and Rameses just won’t negotiate with terrorists. The viewer understands this in the light of contemporary events, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he? Missed opportunities certainly, a bad movie definitely not. Compared to Prince of Egypt, just a little superfluous.
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At first, I thought Scott was going to do the bidding of the Jewish lobby, which has long since failed to let the viewing public be moved by its bitter fate through a narrative sandal. Yet he goes about it in a surprisingly rational way, and so while the pragmatic appreciation of the seven plagues of Egypt by Pharaoh's croaker is still laughable, Moshe's revolution, in which he is on the edge of personal madness, is no longer feigned, and the unorthodox vision is definitely clamped at the bottom of the Red Sea, with even the slight shortcoming (the not-quite-functional portrayal of the bond between the "brothers," which is fortunately saved by both characters; and 20 minutes more would have helped) receding and both ordinary viewers and the those familiar with the literary work will be satisfied.
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A two-and-a-half-hour biblical recitation that will surely appeal to the religiously initiated, but fans of complex filmmaking and especially of Ridley Scott will not find a single moment that they would later recite with relish to their atheist friends. Visually, it’s on a high level, which is par for the course with Scott, but with zero narrative drive or a more detailed elaboration of the motivations of the main characters that would have given their relationship and development a much stronger (or rather at least some) emotional insight. In terms of craftsmanship, everything is sort of OK and it's still much better to look at than most of the wannabe cool CGI fantasy crap, but considering the ambition and depth of the story, Exodus is a film surprisingly devoid of soul and creative personality... 60%
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We can clearly see in every other scene, how much the movie was edited and it is more that obvious that Ridley has a much longer version of it in his drawer. Without this, it would have been even better. But even in its current not polished form, it is exactly what one would expect from it. In other words, it is a truly magnificent and handcrafted adaptation of one of the most impressive stories ever. The snag is mainly in the form of the already mentioned cinema editing, which should have either been shorter and free of all those ambitious subversive motives and themes (Moses' blinded madness, his unbelief, vengeful (not)God of preschool age, emphasis on the non-mythological line, doubting Joshua, Macbeth-like Sigourney, much more sympathetic Egyptians led by the pharaoh, etc.) and simply being an "precise" adaptation of the well-known or should have been even longer and should have been more focused on the above-mentioned and purely sympathetic ambitious subversions. In its current form, however, it is unfinished and halfway, because the epicness of Egypt, individual wounds and the exodus itself were prioritized in terms of footage. Which is a letdown on one hand, but on the other hand it is very enjoyable to watch. That is for sure.
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Trying to film a biblical story to have at least some semblance of a logical explanation is nonsense, which Ridley also realized towards the end. What he still hasn't understood is the fact that there's a much better portrayal out there that has been around for decades, and he doesn't even come close to it. Yes, for the modern audience, this is more digestible, but the story itself is good enough, and this shifting towards the action realm doesn't help it in any way.
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