Exodus: Gods and Kings-Film Review

Exodus: Gods and Kings is an interpretation of the story of Moses (Christian Bale) and how he freed his people, the Israelites from the clutches of Pharaoh Ramses of Egypt (Joel Edgerton), with the help of God.  The film depicts how Moses as a general and member of the Egyptian royal family, but eventually he learns of his true lineage, that he is Hebrew. He is stunned by this and it takes him a while to accept the true meaning of his ethnicity. Ramses also hears about this and exiles Moses to the desert, where he goes to live in Midian and gets married to Zipporah (Maria Valverde). But he is not content because his people are still slaves in Egypt.

This is when God intervenes and tells him to go set his people free. At this point, the adventure really begins for Moses as he takes on the might of an empire. There are so many things that can go wrong when one tries to make a film from a story in the Bible and it seems all these wrong things happened to Ridley Scott, the director. The film is so historically incorrect, all it does is to irritate you. Unfortunately for Scott, we have all heard or watched the story of Moses who was sent by God to deliver the Israelites from Egypt and never was it mentioned that God sent gigantic crocodiles to kill Egyptian fishermen or that Ramses survived after being swept away by the water. And the fact that God is depicted as a young boy Malak (Isaac Andrews), is just so disturbing, every time he would appear, I would grind my teeth together and wonder what Scott was thinking. There are so many spoofs in the film but none can compare to the mediocre acting we get from Bale. This is an actor that has mesmerized a lot of movie lovers for years in Batman movies. His performance is so far below par that not even his sex appeal is able to save him from the disastrous plotless, scriptless sham that Scott wants to pass off as an awarding movie. The only thing Scott got right was the Ramses character. Joel Edgerton as the Pharaoh delivers his best performance yet not only in the way he phrases his words but also by his actions. He is a very believable Ramses, I could not help but have a love-hate relationship with the man because his acting is so to the point that even if the film was just about him, it would have been a great watch. Overall Exodus: Gods and Kings has good graphics but the acting is terrible and it seems Scott missed the plot on this one. But it is worth watching just to see Edgerton as Ramses. To the average audience this will seem like a bad sequel to Mel Gibson’s ‘The Gladiator’. It takes a lot of mind twisting to enjoy this film. Watch at your own risk.