I really, REALLY wanted this movie to be good. And it is on some levels. The story of Exodus is sweeping in scope and makes for great drama, never mind its biblical implications. This is one of those stories that reverberates across the years because of its importance to the modern-day world. Whether or not you believe in the Bible, the story of Moses cannot be denied due to its impact on today. All three major religions accept it and it is arguably the beginning of Israel as a kingdom and now nation with all that that entails. The movie was in the very capable hands of Ridley Scott, a director who, time and again, has proven to be a master storyteller of huge, epic tales. I won't go into a plot synopsis because unless you have been under a rock your whole life, you know the story of Moses. So what, exactly, went wrong with this film?
Well, let's first look at what went right. It is a grand retelling of Exodus, with real scope and majesty. The special effects are spectacular and convincingly portray the large events in Exodus, from the plagues to the parting of the Red Sea. Everyone in the cast is great, with Christian Bale's portrayal of Moses and Joel Edgerton's Ramses as incredible standouts. As they are the heart of the film, these performances were crucial, and if they didn't work, the movie falls apart. There are large, expansive sets and scenes and spectacles that take your breath away, and Scott's great eye for capturing these moments was spot on. The movie is big and ambitious and hits the mark for showmanship.
But what goes wrong with the film are the small parts. Inevitably, this film will draw comparisons to The Ten Commandments, but it really should have tried for the beating heart of the animated The Prince of Egypt. Exodus: Gods and Kings is so preoccupied with its epic scope, it forgets the drama of what is actually happening right in front of you. A theme I was forced to return to again and again as I watched this film was intimacy, or rather, the lack of it. The film has been taking its fair share of abuse from critics and audiences by saying it is essentially Gladiator (another Ridley Scott film) meets Moses. The emphasis on action cheapens or totally obscures the real messages of the story, the whole reason to tell it in the first place. While Ridley Scott is good at telling historical drama, most of his movies are fictitious painted against tableaux of real historical events (Gladiator, The Kingdom of Heaven, 1492: The Conquest of Paradise). There are a lot of compelling things in Exodus. Putting aside God for a moment, there are two powerful cousins as close as brothers ripped apart due to competing loyalties to each other and their motivations; Moses' exile and return to Egypt; Moses' story of his divided heritage; his adoption of a new culture and family far different from his upbringing; his discovery of his true identity and the effect that has on him; Ramses' divided loyalties between his brother and his responsibilities as Pharoeh; the actual exodus of the Jews out of four hundred years of slavery. All of the things make for great drama, and none of them are addressed with any real emphasis other than the exodus itself.
All this potential great drama seems peculiarly cold and detached in the movie. A good example is Moses' wedding night. Before the consummate their marriage, we see the Moses and Sephora telling each other what their love means to each other in an oddly stilted manner, as if they are rehearsing wedding vows. Compare this to the wedding night of Braveheart where in the morning, William Walkace's wife dresses him. With this simple act, there is a very warm and human intimacy between the two that powerfully illustrates the deep love they have for each other. While I don't doubt Moses loved his wife just as much, the scene just feels contrived. They fall in love because the script says so, and now let's get back to the action in progress as quickly as possible. The movie is replete with failed opportunities like this for us to connect with any of the characters on any human level with the exception of Ramses, who gets the most sympathetic treatment I've have ever seen of him. In The Ten Commandments, for the most part, Yul Brynner has to play him almost as a comic book villain. In Exodus, it is the exact opposite. Ramses' character feels as one whom things are being heaped upon unfairly and elicits more than a small bit of sympathy. In fact, he comes across as the most rational character in the story.
But for me, and for most people who will see this film, the most important, and glaring issue, is the almost complete omission of God. The whole movie seems to be interested in demystifying the entire exodus story, to the point where God almost has no part in it at all. And when he does show up, He is played as a petulant child by a very young actor (in one of the most bizarre plotline device and casting choices in movie history). Now, while it is true the God of the Old Testament is very different in actions from the God of the New, it is almost jarring how annoying they make Him here. The God of the Old Testament tends to be more wrathful while the God of the New more loving in his actions. But in this movie, God is most interested in revenge and retribution. He scolds Moses time and again for his hesitancy to act, yet when Moses asks him, quite reasonably, why God has waited 400 years to act and why the urgency now, God lashes back at him in a hissy fit. Then when Moses does act in an ultimately doomed insurgency, God tells him to sit down and shut up and begins the plagues. Gone are any confrontations between Moses and Pharoeh and his court. Gone are any indications that Moses is speaking for God at all. In fact, the whole movie suffers from the Raiders of the Lost Ark story problem: Moses is incidental to anything that happens in the exodus. It all happens despite him, and he is not an active participant in the events, so he has no effect on their outcome. It is as if the filmmakers were so interested in telling a "realistic" and scientific version of the events (an admittedly interesting and apologetic idea), they forgot the deeper reason to tell the story in the first place: that is God actively helping establish a new nation for his Chosen People. I know labels like this are scary to modern revisionists who don't believe in God, but this IS the reason for the story. And while this movie is light years better than last year's spectacular crapfest Noah, Exodus: Gods And Kings still misses the mark. Is it worth watching? Yes. The movie should be told on an epic scope in a theater. But ultimately, it will leave you unfulfilled as a story. An interesting, but ultimately failed idea in the final analysis.
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