#Exodus gods and kings movie

To be fair, there is some good stuff here, too. Scott confuses excessive scale with authentic grandeur, and while some of the battle scenes have a rousing, kinetic sweep, there are far too many slow aerial surveys of Memphis, the Egyptian capital, a city bristling with columns and other priapic monuments.

#Exodus gods and kings movie

But the movie isnвЂ™t successfully serious, either. вЂњExodusвЂќ is ludicrous only by accident, which isnвЂ™t much fun and is the surest sign of what we might call a New Testament sensibility at work. You think this desert is dry? You should try my wifeвЂ™s brisket.ДЄlas, Mr. Eventually, of course, Moses discovers his Jewish roots, which means that he stops shaving, starts herding goats and, unless my ears deceive me, takes to peppering his speech with stagy old-man Yiddish inflections, as though preparing to lead his people from the fleshpots of Egypt into a borscht belt Canaan. Strangest of all is Christian Bale as Moses, raised in the Egyptian royal court as a brother to Ramses and blind to his true heritage. So is the curious decision to encourage the performers to speak in strange, geographically and historically preposterous accents. The casting of вЂњExodus,вЂќ with mostly American, British and Australian actors in Middle Eastern and African roles, has raised some eyebrows, and while these choices represent a failure of imagination and sensitivity, they are also consistent with that old, stale tradition.

More than anything else, it recalls the wide-screen, Technicolor biblical pageants of the 1950s and early вЂ™60s, bland and solemn spectacles that invited moviegoers to marvel at their favorite stars in sandals and robes. вЂњExodus,вЂќ by contrast, crowded with well-known actors, is nowhere near strange enough. вЂњNoah,вЂќ with its stone giants and Emma Watson, may have been too strange for some viewers. We had a blockbuster Sunday school lesson in March in the form of Darren AronofskyвЂ™s вЂњNoah,вЂќ and now we have Ridley ScottвЂ™s attempt to bring another famous chunk of the Hebrew Bible to life, in 3-D no less. The timing of the movieвЂ™s release - a few days before Hanukkah - may be a bit puzzling, but it does provide a nice bookend for 2014. Longer than the average Hollywood feature film and shorter than the average Passover Seder, вЂњExodus: Gods and KingsвЂќ tells the well-known story of how Moses led the enslaved Israelites out of bondage in Egypt.