Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

Directed by: Ridley Scott
Country: USA

Movie Review: The unimaginative Biblical epic “Exodus: Gods and Kings” is brought by the respected English filmmaker Ridley Scott, and stars Christian Bale in the role of Moses, assigned by God with the mission of freeing 600,000 Hebrew slaves imprisoned in Egypt for 400 years. When this recognized Egyptian leader knows the truth about his origins, coping with the fact that he was born an Israeli slave, he decides to follow his illuminated soul and lead his people to Canaan and to their beloved God. The task won’t be easy since the envious Pharaoh Ramses (Joel Edgerton), with whom he grew up as a brother, will oppose him with fear of losing the throne, as some prophets once predicted when his father, Seti (John Turturro), was still ruling. The film was entertaining until certain point due to the nature of its story, but not even one or another distortion in the plot, credited to four different writers, could provide us some thrills or surprises. Its execution didn’t convince as well, seeming exclusively made to impress the eyes and standing as an unorthodox exercise on shots from the top where the humans appear like ants crawling on a battlefield. Actually, the scenarios were never natural and the scenes never sufficiently striking in order to move us. Trying to escape to Christmas’s Hobbit-mania, I decided to give a chance to “Exodus: Gods and Kings”, coming to the sad conclusion that Scott blew it, making a super-long film whose episodes ironically felt short. Ridley dedicated the film to his younger brother and fellow director, Tony Scott, who died in 2012.