Spoilers
Exodus is a Ridley Scott's new film about Moses and the Ten Commandments. First off I have never seen the original Ten Commandments movie, I am pretty young and I am still catching up on a lot of films in movie history, I did see the Prince of Egypt movie... when I was five and can barley remember most of it but I did remember liking it and the parting of the sea scene. I am Catholic and I am a believer in God (I'm not a religious nutcase, I'm pretty laid back) but I only remember the barest of basics of the story of Exodus. So I'm judging this movie on it's own terms. Sadly the movie kind of sucks on it's own.
Exodus: Gods and Kings should really be retitled, Exodus: wastes of time
Lets' start with the god because while I overall thought the movie was bad I didn't completely hate it, I thought Prometheus was boring but I still liked some parts of it (special effects, David and Schmidt.) The special effects were amazing with the visuals the burning bush looked really good, the scope, the clothes, the settings and environment was beautiful the only thing that bothered me was they did use CGI animals which always annoys me to no end because how hard is it to get trained animals for a five second scene but I've complained about that enough so moving on.
The characters of Moses and Ramseses are well written, I feel bad for both men (well Ramsses I know is an evil dictator does have some ok qualities like he does generally care for Moses and he's a loving father), and some interesting stuff is done with Moses. Yet probably the best part of the movie is the Plagues, it was engaging, interesting and had me on the edge of my seat when they were occurring and that was the only time the movie was any of those things for me.
Now let's get to the bad.
One of the major problems in that it feels like it's missing a lot of scenes, a lot of stuff that is either explained or brushed over in this movie feels as if there was a scene with it but it was either cut out of the script or cut out of the movie in editing. An example of this is when Moses is explained to who he is they explain it very thoroughly and in a way they really should not know what explicitly happened and it feels like they are making up for not having filmed those scenes and using them as the beginning. Moses also meets his wife very abruptly, Moses says hello to his real brother but nothing comes about it and it feels like there should have been more with them, that's another example and even just how they get in and out of places like when Moses confronts Ramsesses for the first time since his exile, he and five other people break into and out of the palace without once getting caught by the guards.
Another major problem is the pacing of this movie and the pacing of the movie is very weird. It's about two hours and thirty minutes long and in a way it has too slow and too fast of a pace. The movie is both dragging and makes it feel like it's been going on for forty years but rushes over what should be key moments and doesn't take a break, it doesn't stop long enough for really anything to resonate with you and create an impact.
Except for Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton most of the actors they got have nothing to do and so are wasted. Sigourney Weaver shows up in five or six scenes and has two lines, John Turturro is in it for ten minutes then dies abruptly, Aaron Paul has no reason to be there and hardly says anything, Ben Kinglsey's the same as with most of the cast. Which is why it's so stupid there aren't more Egyptian people since most of the "main cast" hardly does anything.
The movie has very big tone problem as at certain points it doesn't know whether it's a biblical movie or not. There are parts saying "yes God is doing all of these things" and Moses talks to god in this movie but on the other hand there are parts saying "don't believe in God it's about you" and they portray Moses in some aspects as he's not talking to God but has gone crazy and some stuff can be explain. It does ultimately fall under that it is completely Gods work but for a lot of the movie it kind of flip-flops on itself. And speaking of God, God is represented as a child talking to Moses (Mass effect three anyone?) and I know this is clearly Old testament God but this God is down right psychotic and awful and kind of bullies Moses into doing things so it's kind of hard to believe that Moses would follow him and believe in him at the end. Yet at the same time it does present and interesting concept of God being a child throwing a temper tantrum ("GIVE ME MY TOY OR I WILL KILL YOUR CHILDREN") but the film doesn't really go with it or seems to acknowledge that.
Yet probably the biggest sin of this movie is that it's just kind of boring. Throughout the movie the acting is very stiff and lifeless with the exception of Christian Bale who makes anything kind of exposition interesting, no one seems to give any effort and it feels like a lot of them barely want to be there. The dialogue was so flat I started to imagine the Charlie Brown teacher speaking in the place of most of the actors. The action is very standard and the big iconic set pieces such as the burning bush and the parting of the red sea (I'll get to that in a second), while look pretty are meh when they should be "oh my god that is amazing." From what I've heard they don't add anything new to the story and the only thing they do add makes what supposed to be the most Iconic thing in the story of Moses ever boring and pointless.
Of course I am talking about the parting of the red scene. Something that is supposed to be stunning, epic and just amazing, dumb and boring. Instead of a staff it's matching twins swords Moses uses to part the red sea and of course Ramsesses has the other one. They don't even part the sea technically it just kind of evaporates and comes back in form of a flood and rain.
If Noah is what you should do with a biblical story, make it interesting, ambitious and entertaining Exodus is what you don't do make it dull, standard and strip what it made it unique and memorable and make it boring.
I give this movie a 3.5/10~ The plague, special effects, Ramesses and Moses were good but everything else is basically a sin against what it could have been.
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