5.5/10

The latest in a string of religious films given the A-List treatment is Director Ridley Scott’s attempt at making the material relatable. “Exodus : Gods and Kings” is the story of one man’s daring courage to take on a 400 year reign of an empire. Using state of the art visual effects and 3D immersion, Scott brings new life to the story of the defiant leader Moses (Christian Bale) as he rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses (Joel Edgerton), setting 600,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues. This film has gotten a terrible reputation from disappointed film critics this weekend, and while i can say that the film does have a lot of problems, it’s not quite the terrible attrocity that it’s been made out to be. “Exodus” has it’s problems (mostly in the technical aspect), but Scott has always been a master of the cinematography arts in his films, and this one is no exception. The long shots of a developing Egypt 400 years into a tyranical reign of slavery is breathtaking. A lot of the land in the film’s forefront is deserts for miles and miles, and Scott has a skill for detail of that era. I only wish he cared as much about the look of the actors he cast for the roles. Truth be told, this film has gotten a lot of flack for casting caucasian Hollywood A-listers, and to a certain point i get the argument. Bale has always been one of my favorite actors, but he looks no different than he would stepping out of the Batman suit. Meanwhile, Edgerton is put through makeup hell to establish the look of Ramses. Between he and John Turturo, they look about ten pounds of pancake makeup over the limit to be cast in an 80’s Van Halen music video. Turturo is possibly the funniest casting of the film. Many of the slaves are jewish, so it made me kind of laugh when they cast a Jewish actor as the father of Ramses. Did Scott not do his homework on his actors? This might not bother someone else, but i find the irony to be hilarious. Sigourney Weaver plays the wife of Turturo, and i still wonder why. She has two lines of dialogue throughout the film, and is never treated as an important part of the script. This is interesting because no single actor or actress has played a bigger part in the Ridley Scott film franchise. Her lack of scenes could be accredited to a director’s cut that might exist beyond the awful editing work done in this one. More on that later. The best acting job in this film belongs to a child playing God. Soak that in for a minute. This boy’s parts of the film had my eyes glued to the screen, as there is such a presence that you don’t see in most child actors. It might seem ridiculous, but i don’t know if God has ever been cast better than he has in this film. As i mentioned before, the editing of the final cut is one of the worst i have seen of the year. The film is nearly two and a half hours long for no reason what so ever. It is an epic of a story, but an easy 20 minutes of this film could’ve been left on the cutting room floor. If you didn’t budge from this film’s long run time, maybe you could substitute those meaningless 20 minutes for some scenes with some answers for the time jumps this film surprises the viewers with. One of these scenes shows Moses walking into a small village where he meets a woman. The two talk for two minutes, and LITERALLY the very next scene shows them getting married. No on screen text to tell us how much time has passed, or even a reason for us to believe this union because we didn’t see their chemistry at all on screen. Another such scene happens about five minutes after the former one. Once again, no on screen text to support the fact that Moses all of a sudden has two children. I had a similar problem to this when i reviewed “Jersey Boys” in June. The kids part will have you scratching your head if you are trying to keep up with how much time has passed, or where in history we are at during this time. It’s all a big mess. “Exodus” had an estimated 140 million dollar budget, but none of that matters if the production crew didn’t care enough to make this presentable. Every year, a 100 something million dollar bomb happens, and this seems to be the likely nominee for 2014. The film wasn’t as terrible as i was led to believe, but i can’t recommend this movie for anyone. The exciting moments happen few and far between pacing problems that will put any viewer to sleep. It has some admirable qualities, but “Exodus: Gods and Kings” is unfaithful to the material, and doesn’t even make it ridiculously entertaining like in “Noah”. No need to see this one. Don’t call me Moses, but i led you out of the darkness on this one.